not enough bandwidth

[johnhuntf4s]

I'm trying to watch a TV show on BBC iplayer and I get a message come up on the screen saying - "Sorry, you don't have enough bandwidth to play right now" with an option to Try Again. Does anyone have any ideas on what's going on here and what's causing this problem?

[NeilO]

Hi @johnhuntf4s welcome to the community and thanks for posting. That message would indicate your broadband speed may not be fast enough. Are you trying to watch the iPlayer on a BT TV box?

Thanks

Neil

[johnhuntf4s]

No I'm watching it on a laptop with a wifi connection to my router. I've set the reolution in iplayer to low and I'm still getting the error message. I think it's just a very poor broadband connection in our area. On a good day I might get 5MB download and 0.3MB upload.

[rbz5416]

If you install their app you should be able to download the programme & watch it locally, so you won't be reliant on an Internet connection:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/install

[DavidM · Accepted solution]

Hi @johnhuntf4s ,

Sorry for the late reply. Are you still having problems with this?

Cheers

David

[CecilWard]

Your upstream speed is really awful. Maybe talk to your ISP about that.

From my own experience, 5 Mbps downstream speed should be easily more than enough for Netflix. I have Netflix working fine with only 3 Mbps downstream TCP payload speed (that is, the kind of number typically reported by a speed tester).

Talk to your ISP about Netflix and measure your actual speed with several speed testers. A speed tester that lives in your own ISP’s network will, all things being equal, give the most reliable results. See also https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306

Also get your ISP to help you do a local wireless LAN test, of just your wifi, going only as far as your router, not out onto the internet, so that you can isolate any possible problems with nasty wifi connectivity. You may of course be able to try Netflix using an ethernet network cable to your router / switch, rather than using Wifi. The comparison will tell you whether or not your wireless LAN is guilty.

In the meantime, you can always download programmes first and then watch them without using the internet.