Recently my Roku, attached to a new Airport Extreme 802.11n Dual Band II router, started having problems streaming HD content from both Netflix and Amazon video. It also had intermittent quality problems with SD content as well. In the past, it performed flawlessly.

Network tests (ranging from the obligatory Speed Test to ping and traceroute) seemed to work. Hard wiring the Roku to my router didn’t make a difference, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t my router.

But then, amidst my disgust, I remembered something I changed not so long ago… I changed my DNS on the router from InsightBB to Google’s new public DNS. I did a traceroute to Netflix’ content distribution host (traceroute cdn.netflix.com) and lo and behold, I saw that my requests were being routed from Cincinnati to Atlanta to Washington. Oy! (see output below)

traceroute cdn.netflix.com
traceroute: Warning: cdn.netflix.com has multiple addresses; using 208.111.168.7
traceroute to netflix.vo.llnwd.net (208.111.168.7), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1  10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1)  1.243 ms  0.850 ms  0.715 ms
2  74-136-176-1.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.136.176.1)  10.292 ms  7.530 ms  16.441 ms
3  74-128-22-49.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.128.22.49)  14.362 ms  6.205 ms  11.816 ms
4  74-128-19-33.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.128.19.33)  9.586 ms  28.300 ms  40.123 ms
5  74.128.9.233 (74.128.9.233)  14.796 ms  15.419 ms  14.436 ms
6  te-9-2.car1.atlanta2.level3.net (4.71.252.37)  30.392 ms  32.277 ms  32.545 ms
7  ae-72-52.ebr2.atlanta2.level3.net (4.68.103.61)  26.019 ms  23.410 ms  47.447 ms
8  ae-63-60.ebr3.atlanta2.level3.net (4.69.138.4)  37.086 ms  23.687 ms  35.168 ms
9  ae-2.ebr1.washington1.level3.net (4.69.132.86)  41.345 ms  53.264 ms  48.131 ms
10  ae-81-81.csw3.washington1.level3.net (4.69.134.138)  38.460 ms  41.296 ms  55.540 ms
11  ae-41-89.car1.washington3.level3.net (4.68.17.135)  43.551 ms  47.695 ms  45.433 ms
12  te3-4-10g.ar2.dca3.gblx.net (64.212.107.61)  39.097 ms  39.573 ms  38.241 ms
13  limelight.tengigabitethernet6-2.ar2.dc3.gblx.net (64.215.26.126)  39.358 ms  42.771 ms  97.640 ms
14  tge9-3.fr3.lga.llnw.net (69.28.171.158)  44.475 ms  44.565 ms  46.384 ms
15  tge1-2.fr4.ord.llnw.net (69.28.171.193)  49.194 ms  50.696 ms  51.392 ms
16  cdn-208-111-168-7.ord.llnw.net (208.111.168.7)  48.165 ms  47.922 ms  45.886 ms
17  * * *

So, I decided to change my DNS to OpenDNS instead (it’s great…try it out! Great set of features). Voila! Now my requests to Netflix’s content delivery network are routed directly to Chicago!

traceroute cdn.netflix.com
traceroute: Warning: cdn.netflix.com has multiple addresses; using 208.111.168.6
traceroute to netflix.vo.llnwd.net (208.111.168.6), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1  10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1)  14.704 ms  1.160 ms  0.603 ms
2  74-136-176-1.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.136.176.1)  12.129 ms  15.592 ms  12.027 ms
3  74-128-22-49.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.128.22.49)  12.657 ms  8.135 ms  13.160 ms
4  74-128-16-133.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.128.16.133)  20.713 ms  9.090 ms  12.973 ms
5  74.128.8.233 (74.128.8.233)  149.239 ms  226.148 ms  239.229 ms
6  4.71.250.29 (4.71.250.29)  20.493 ms  22.167 ms  21.960 ms
7  vlan51.ebr1.chicago2.level3.net (4.69.138.158)  22.478 ms
vlan52.ebr2.chicago2.level3.net (4.69.138.190)  27.008 ms
vlan51.ebr1.chicago2.level3.net (4.69.138.158)  22.622 ms
8  ae-5.ebr2.chicago1.level3.net (4.69.140.193)  27.992 ms  27.293 ms  39.074 ms
9  ae-23-56.car3.chicago1.level3.net (4.68.101.167)  32.908 ms  24.086 ms  20.232 ms
10  glbx-level3-te.chicago1.level3.net (4.68.110.194)  22.624 ms  25.286 ms  25.018 ms
11  64.215.29.250 (64.215.29.250)  39.314 ms  26.946 ms  23.569 ms
12  tge7-1.fr3.ord.llnw.net (69.28.172.41)  25.630 ms  29.050 ms  22.004 ms
13  cdn-208-111-168-6.ord.llnw.net (208.111.168.6)  22.039 ms  22.772 ms  23.608 ms
14  * * *