Netflix Now Posting Monthly Rankings Of ISP Speeds

Image courtesy of (Netflix)

(Source: Netflix)

(Source: Netflix)

If, during the course of watching a 50-hour marathon of Burn Notice on Netflix, you find yourself occasionally annoyed by drops in resolution or — heaven forefend — buffering, it might be your Internet service provider. Well, now you can get a better idea as Netflix intends to post monthly rankings of speed on 21 major ISPs.

“Our 30 million members view over 1 billion hours of Netflix per month,” writes Netflix’s Ken Florance, Vice President of Content Delivery, “so we have very reliable data for consumers to compare ISPs in terms of real world performance.”

Most of you will not be shocked that Google Fiber, which is really only available in the Kansas City area, ranks highest on the list, averaging 2.55 Mbps in November.

Verizon FiOS ranked second with 2.19 Mbps, but that was only a small fraction ahead of Comcast and Charter (2.17 Mbps for each), Cablevision (2.15 Mbps), Mediacom (2.14 Mbps), and Time Warner Cable and BrightHouse (tied with 2.12 Mbps).

Noteworthy is AT&T U-Verse, which could not crack the top 10 and came in with only 1.94 Mbps.

“AT&T U-verse, which is a hybrid fiber-DSL service, shows quite poorly compared to Verizon Fios, which is pure fiber,” writes Florance.

The list also includes wireless carriers, all of which take up the bottom of the rankings.

But among the subgroup of wireless ISPs, Verizon is streaming the fastest at .76 Mbps, followed by T-Mobile (.64 Mbps), Sprint (.56 Mbps), and finally AT&T (.48 Mbps).

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