Netflix and Verizon have done a lot of very public verbal poo-flinging at each other this year over the abysmal connection speeds FiOS customers have had when trying to stream video from Netflix. Last mongh, FiOS customers finally started to see some relief (and some smoothly playing TV). It looks like the paid interconnection agreement between the two, though, has finally led to some cooperation and is bearing fruit, as Verizon FiOS customers are now seeing faster average Netflix streaming speeds than from any other large ISP in the country.
In their most recent monthly ISP speed index rankings, Netflix says that not only has FiOS continued to improve, but also now it in fact leads the pack, beating out all the other cable and DSL companies Netflix tracks (as well as AT&T U-verse).
How sudden was this turnaround for Fios? In one month, Netflix says, Verizon’s fiber service jumped nine positions in the rankings — from 10th place to first — to top this month’s index with an average speed of 3.17 Mbps. Cablevision Optimum and Cox cable were the only other providers to average speeds higher than 3 Mbps, with 3.12 and 3.04 respectively. Comcast came in at number six, with an average connection speed of 2.92 Mbps.
Netflix and Verizon reached an agreement all the way back in April, but as recently as July were still sniping very publicly at each other about the poor service instead of actually getting it fixed. FiOS connections to Netflix tanked so badly by June that even doing an end-run to a faraway VPN worked better.
Finally, after six months of this back-and-forth, FioS users finally started to see some real improvement with their Netflix service last month, as the connection speed took a dramatic and immediate jump for the better.
The full results of Netflix’s rankings, which include many smaller ISPs (like Google Fiber, which beats all the others), are available here.
by Kate Cox via Consumerist
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