SE Could do something about it's routing and here is an article on why.

My wife was nice enough to bring me this home from work today during our lunch break. I've been struggling with a clean Netflix connection and Comcast was the reason. Now it seems per this article:

http://money.msn.com/investing/post-...smooth-streams

Here is a snip from the article but the whole article is a good read through.

Netflix has historically routed its streaming content to broadband providers through a number of Internet middlemen. But since mid-2012, the company has been trying to reduce what it pays these middlemen by getting broadband companies to hook up directly to its new video-distribution network without paying them fees for carrying its traffic.

In recent months, traffic jams have developed on some of its existing connections through middlemen to broadband providers like Comcast and Verizon. These bottlenecks included Cogent Communications (CCOI -5.47%), which Netflix was using as a "primary" route into Comcast, a person familiar with the matter has said.

People familiar with Netflix's and Cogent's thinking have said the broadband providers had been delaying upgrading those links. But broadband executives privately complained that Netflix could route its traffic more efficiently. Netflix has said that it carefully plans its traffic routes to make sure customers have the best experience possible.

Netflix can control not only its routing to it's customers as the article suggest but can also pay comcast for better connectivity to ensure clean transmission to the subscribers.

Not suggesting SE pay comcast but from what I gather in the article it seems a company has some say as to what network routes its customers can receive. Like how the customer connects and what route it takes to get the the company.

Take a look at the article I was wowed by it but it is def some good reading. Maybe there are some things SE could do with talking to Comcast to get it better for some of us.

Main thing I took from that article was that Companies dictate the routes to their customers and not the customer or the isp. Is that not what it says?

I saw this article earlier as well. I am of the opinion that this would not be likely for a video game company to perform something like this, particularly one with its current infrastructure. It would involve several changes that just don't seem likely, such as changing data solutions providers, and content delivery networks to a given ISP. It's a nice idea, but unfortunately, incredibly costly for everyone involved. Not to mention I highly doubt an ISP would want to do business with a game company, as they have shown to be frequently unreliable in terms of consistency of data usage (constantly changing structure, poll rates, dropping server support, etc). Netflix has been, and will be, around for a very long time with little to no change in how it should perform.

But yes, you are correct in assuming that companies are capable of dictating routes to their customers, sort of. It's just not as simple as 1,2,3. There are several contracts involved that I don't pretend to know about, nor do I know if they could afford something like that.

Very good reply. I see what your saying and agree it would be more involved than just poof it's done. Thank you for responding.