By: The BitMar Team.
Image Source: Gemini.
Consumers subscribe to streaming services expecting a seamless, high-quality viewing experience. Frequent buffering, pixelation, and low-resolution playback severely diminish the value of these subscriptions. While viewers often blame the streaming platform, the bottleneck frequently exists within the home network. Ensuring your network performs optimally is a critical step to maximize the enjoyment of your paid services.
The quality of the viewing experience is a primary component of user satisfaction. The ACSI Telecommunications Study 2024 identifies "video streaming quality" and "internet service reliability" as key metrics for customer contentment. Furthermore, the NPAW 2024 Video Streaming Industry Report highlights that while technical quality metrics like bitrate are improving globally, playback interruptions remain a significant source of viewer frustration. These issues often originate from network congestion, poor signal strength, or hardware limitations at home.
Many households subscribe to high-speed internet plans but fail to experience those speeds on their devices. A report from the University of Chicago’s DSI Internet Equity Initiative found that Wi-Fi often becomes a significant bottleneck, particularly for households with internet plans exceeding 200 Mbps. Your fast connection from your provider may not reach your television if the internal wireless network is inefficient, effectively preventing you from receiving the service quality for which you pay.
The physical location of your wireless router is fundamental to performance. Wi-Fi signals degrade over distance and through physical obstructions. A study on Wi-Fi signal quality confirmed that signal strength decreases significantly with distance. Interference from other electronics, such as microwaves, or obstructions like dense walls can also degrade performance. For best results, place your router in a central, elevated, and open location, away from other large electronics.
For stationary streaming devices, such as smart televisions, gaming consoles, or set-top boxes, a wired connection is superior. Using an Ethernet cable to connect the device directly to your router bypasses all wireless-related issues, including signal interference and instability. This method provides the most consistent and fastest possible connection, virtually eliminating buffering caused by local network factors.
Network congestion, which occurs when many devices compete for bandwidth simultaneously, is another common culprit. Video calls, online gaming, and large file downloads all consume significant data. If your router supports "Quality of Service" (QoS) settings, you may configure it to prioritize video streaming traffic. Alternatively, scheduling large downloads or intensive tasks for off-peak hours can free network resources for smooth video playback.
Finally, outdated hardware can cap your streaming quality. An older router may not support modern Wi-Fi standards, and an aging streaming device may lack the processing power for newer video formats. Delivering a high-quality stream is a key factor in satisfaction, as noted in the J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Television Service Provider Satisfaction Study. Upgrading your hardware ensures your network can consistently deliver the high-quality service you expect.
Next-generation streaming platforms – like: BitMar – may provide you the most affordable form of on-demand streaming entertainment. BitMar provides all-in-one streaming service, for life, for a one-time payment. It can connect you to millions of on-demand movies, TV shows, channels, videos, and songs (from many different sources on the Web), on the screens that you already own. In fact, BitMar provides access to more movies, and TV shows, than: Cable, Satellite, Netflix, Disney Plus, Max/HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Peacock, and Hulu – combined – and more songs, than: Pandora, Spotify, Amazon Prime Music, and Apple Music—combined. You may learn more, at: BitMar.com/.