Colin Nederkoorn, CEO of software company Customer.io is a bit annoyed that his 75 Mbps FiOS connection can't stream a Netflix video. In a blog post and accompanying test video, Nederkoorn notes that his normally-speedy 75 Mbps FiOS connection struggles along at 375 kbps. Having read Level3's recent accusation that Verizon is intentionally leaving interconnection links congested to drive up Netflix's costs, he wondered if he could get around the congested paths using a VPN:

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My hypothesis here was that by connecting to a VPN, my traffic might end up getting routed through uncongested tubes. Basically, if Verizon is not upgrading the tubes that go to Netflix, maybe I can connect to a different location (via VPN) first where Verizon will have good performance and there will be no congestion between location 2 and and Netflix.

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Lo and behold, his FiOS line is magically capable of streaming Netflix video at 3 Mbps:

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I connect to a VPN (in this case VyprVPN) and I quickly get up to full speed at 3000 kbps (the max on Netflix), about 10x the speed I was getting connecting directly via Verizon. It seems absurd to me that adding another hop via a VPN actually improves streaming speed.Clearly it’s not Netflix that doesn’t have the capacity. It seems that Verizon are deliberately dragging their feet and failing to provide service that people have paid for. Verizon, tonight you made an enemy, and doing my own tests have proven (at least to me) that you’re in the wrong here.

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Again, if Verizon is clearly leaving connection points un-upgraded to cause congestion and drive up a video competitors' costs (and their own revenues through interconnection fees), clearly that's something the FCC's investigation can uncover in short order without ambiguous waffling, right?