Originally Posted by dubrov1:
“I agree you can't expect the service to work if you are outside their target region.
In saying that, the Android app reviews confirm that it is pretty poor in the MENA region.
There is no evidence either way on the quality of the browser streams in MENA.
Recent evidence suggests that quality is not related to actual location but more configuration (browser choice, cache, flash player version)”
Firstly, I can find plenty of instances of UK customers complaining about poor quality Android apps for Sky, Now TV etc and they're in the same country, so that's a pretty poor argument to bring to the table. As already pointed out here, the Android market is so fragmented that to level that against any broadcaster domestic or foreign is low. The times I used the Al Jazeera app on my iPhone, I always found it to be particularly good quality. Not tried anything beIN branded on my phone but I have no reason to doubt it'd be the same seeing as it's the same service with a new name.
There is evidence of quality of browser streams from with the MENA region and you can either choose to acknowledge them or ignore them.. up to you. As stated, Al Jazeera, along with it's digital partner Perform, have won prestigious industry awards in the region, most notably for "Best Sports Website" for their online streaming service, "Content Service Award", "Best iPhone App" and "Best Tablet App". There are also forums and pages out there commenting on the quality of the service from both people within the region and people giving reviews on the service in general if you know where to look. The Internet is a big place!
The quality is related to how the data from the beIN servers is being treated once it's routed through to us by the middle man (DNS/VPN) and our ISP. There is no set method for how this is done - each ISP is different. TBH, provided I've always flushed my cache and kept my system up to date I've had minimal to no problems, even when people are on here reporting poor service. If the service was so bad at source, we'd all have the same issues but that's not the case - it's entirely dependent on how your particular set-up is receiving the data and what your network is doing with it.