FiOS Tops Netflix Stream Quality Rankings

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Are you making a statement about variance or throughput or both?

If I look at the chart, some cable providers, who by implication have not been doing traffic management as long as Ma Bell, do have a higher variance than ATT U-Verse and VZ FIOS. However, the variance seem the same for Charter, Comcast and ATT/VZ.

Charter has 5.2 million customers (cannot find Internet breakout), VZ FIOS has ~4million Internet customers and Comcast has 16.7m Internet customers. If anything I would have to surmise that Comcast is tops in traffic management since they server 4 times more customers and yet their variance isn't any greater than VZ.

In terms of FIOS, their higher throughput is likely due to their minimum speed being similar to cable's mid to upper tiers.

variance between providers...the telcos' curves seem overall flatter (less variance from day to day) than the others. And the other statement I was trying to make could probably be better made with an example: if the throughput on any given day (X axis) goes up for Charter, it goes up approximately (but not absolutely) as much for AT&T (and Comcast, and Verizon, and...)

But that's a great point about subscriber base. I hadn't thought about that.
I stand corrected.

If the do then I've never experienced it.

quote:

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If the do then I've never experienced it.

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Look around online and you'll see plenty of complaints. Considering how often they have outages it's not surprising.

I don't know if it is related to Netflix's connection but I have had issues ever since they switched to Silverlight... what a piece of CRAP! Netflix tech support points their finger at Microsoft and Microsoft says it's your hardware. Strange, I never had a problem when the player was WMP based nor do I have problems playing 1080P in VLC.

Got rid of Netflix, use P2P now... better selection anyway.

amazon uses flash. no problems there

I didn't know such a place existed.
Truely the depths of hell.


oh wait we call that wireless

If Clearwire weren't on the list as it should have not been in the first place as a wireless operator, Verizon DSL is the WORST Internet provider in the USA.

There you have it folks.

Sad but true. And Netflix does it with less bandwidth.

In a lot of areas 3Mbps IS the Max for Verizon's DSL. Some people wind up getting 1.5Mbps on a 3Mbps connection due to some known issues and some simply get stuck at a lower speed. Then there's those homes who have everyone using the connection...

And until they do I will stick with Netflix for $8 a month. Not Cable for channels like HBO for $16 a month for the same 5 movies repeated every month.

Hey but to each his own if it works for you.

They provision entry as 3.) mbit and I know a lot of people get 1.3-1.7mbit. The next tier around here is 1.0 which with PPPOE overhead is worse for Netflix than 768K RR lite.

I find that interesting. Is Netflix trying to play at exactly 1Mbps or is it playing at the same rate of Roadrunner Lite? Overhead from PPPoE/ATM shouldn't be reducing the throughput that much...

This graph is VERY deceptive. First of all, due to hard economic times, not every customer on each provider's network is going to opt for a higher speed package. For example, on Cox, their default when you go for the triple play $75 a month special that they have (cable-phone-internet) is 3mbps.... So naturally, if most Cox customers are on that 3mbps tier, it's going to skew the results of this graph.

Same goes for AT&T U-Verse, or any other provider... Verizon's numbers are higher because the minimum package they offer on their FIOS is 15mbps.

BTW, speaking of that "minimum" package of 15mbps, when I was in New York City visiting a friend who had FIOS, download speeds never came any where near close to that, and netflix had buffering issues... So Verizon is better? Maybe in some markets, but definitely not in Manhattan. LOL

So? Netflix streams at low bitrates anyway, so the people using 3 Mbps are not going to affect the results too differently than those running FiOS 15 Mbps.

And another note about FiOS: While their customer service absolutely sucks, the service itself is fantastic. They over-provision you by about 20%, so 15 is actually 18, 25 is 30, and 35 is 42. I don't know what's wrong with your friend's connection, but Verizon should be pretty damn good in NYC everywhere even during rush hour. I'm surprised you haven't talked smack about U-verse considering you live in San Diego; AT&T truly is garbage.

Netflix users can set their account to stream at
Good quality (up to 0.3 GB per hour) (ok for celphone/small screens)

Better quality (up to 0.7 GB per hour) ok for small tablets small tvs and laptop, or people with low caps or speeds

Best quality (up to 1 GB per hour, or up to 2.3 GB per hour for HD)
HD (720) looks pretty good on medium large screens (40-50") if you have the consistant bandwidth.
if you've got the 70"+ jumbotron or MUST HAVE full HD best quality at all times get the blu-ray shipping or find a diffenrt stream provider, netflix doesn't meet your streaming needs

that I had for 2 years was absolutely fantastic

Great speeds, consistent speeds, and zero issues.