Thanks to a paid interconnection deal announced in April, Verizon FiOS has surged to the top of Netflix’s ISP Speed Index for September, unseating Cablevision Systems as the best performer (by a small margin) among the 16 major U.S. broadband providers ranked each month by Netflix.
Verizon FiOS ,with an average Netflix streaming speed of 3.17 Mbps, rose nine spots in the rankings, up from the 2.41 Mbps average Verizon FiOS turned in for August 2014. Verizon DSL averaged 1.68 Mbps in September (beating its 1.31 Mbps average for August), good enough to move it one spot ahead of now last-place Clearwire.
Among the other major ISPs ranked by Netflix, Cablevision’s 3.17 Mbps average was good for the second spot, followed by Cox Communications (3.04 Mbps); Bright House Networks (2.99 Mbps); Charter Communications (2.95 Mbps); Comcast (2.92 Mbps); Suddenlink Communications (2.91 Mbps); Time Warner Cable (2.87 Mbps); AT&T U-verse (2.77 Mbps), Mediacom Communications (2.68 Mbps); Frontier Communications (1.99 Mbps); Windstream (1.97 Mbps); CenturyLink Communications (1.92 Mbps); AT&T DSL (1.91 Mbps), Verizon DSL (1.68 Mbps); and Clearwire (1.03 Mbps.).
As jockeying position goes, Bright House jumped five spots in September, while Comcast and AT&T U-verse each dropped two spots. Mediacom dropped four spots.
Updated: A Netflix official confirmed that Bright House has an interconnection deal via the streamer's relationship with Time Warner Cable. More details are available here.
Netflix has announced paid interconnection deals with AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner Cable, and has urged the FCC to include peering deals into the discussion as the Commission pursues new network neutrality rules. Netflix’s preference is to have ISPs join Open Connect, Netflix’s private content delivery network that relies on edge caching appliances.
According to Netflix’s expanded U.S. results, Google Fiber was still tops, with an average of 3.54 Mbps, followed by Grande Communications (3.33 Mbps), Midcontinent Communications (3.24 Mbps), and RCN (3.21 Mbps).
Netflix spokeswoman Anne Marie Squeo noted in a blog post that the average Netflix streaming speed in the U.S. has risen about 500 Kbps in the last two months, averaging 2.72 Mbps for September. That puts the U.S. at No. 13th on Netflix’s nation-by-nation rankings, which has just added six new European countries to the index -- France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, and Luxembourg.
Switzerland (3.81 Mbps average) topped Netflix’s global raking, followed by Belgium (3.77 Mbps); Austria (3.64 Mbps); The Netherlands (3.58 Mbps); Germany (3.52 Mbps); Sweden (3.39 Mbps); Denmark (3.33 Mbps); Norway (3.3 Mbps); France (3.12 Mbps); Finland (3.04 Mbps); United Kingdom (3.02 Mbps); Canada (2.86 Mbps); and the U.S.
