8 ms·

Netflix Performance on Top ISP Networks

178 points by carson 16y ago

anonymous246 16y ago
This is not a very useful graph to assign blame. :) I've always wondered why I don't always get movies in streamed in HD even for movies available in HD. Almost anytime of the day, I can saturate my DSL line's download bandwidth from fast sites such as Amazon S3. But Netflix doesn't always stream in HD even though my link is faster than what's required (4800 Kbps). I suspect the bottleneck is at Netflix's end.
- illumin8 16y ago
  The bottleneck is most likely not at Netflix's end. They use a number of CDNs, such as Akamai and Level 3. These CDNs usually co-locate a box right at your ISP. So, it is entirely up to your ISP how much of that bandwidth makes it through to you. I can assure you, Akamai content is fully capable of saturating your tiny broadband connection. I regularly download large files hosted on Akamai (commercial software) and achieve download rates of 2MB/sec on my 20 megabit Cablevision line. However, ISPs do "manage" Netflix traffic. How they choose to manage it varies by ISP, but it might be something as simple as giving streaming traffic a different priority over web traffic, which tends to be more latency sensitive. Joe sixpack tends to complain when his browser takes longer than a few seconds to load a page, which ties up a customer service line. If your Netflix stream automatically switches from HD to non-HD, you might not even notice because they've made their software pretty good at adapting to changes in available bandwidth.
- SoftwareMaven 16y ago
  Are you using a dns provider like opendns or google? I am and it drastically affects streaming rates because you get sent to the wrong place in the cdn. I changed my streaming box's dns server to my isp's and got much better service from Netflix.
  - anonymous246 16y ago
    Thanks a lot. Yes, I use Google DNS. I will be sure to try this out.
bbatsell 16y ago
This is a fantastic idea. There are a few elements to it that one could use to dispute its value — for example, Netflix has no way of knowing what level of service a customer has paid for. They also don't appear to differentiate between different types of service from a single ISP (e.g., they lump together AT&T's old ADSL customers in with ADSL2/U-Verse, and, presumably Verizon's DSL with FiOS). I would hope that they are also filtering for sessions where a higher bitrate is requested, which Netflix's Silverlight app doesn't do unless the window/screen is large enough to benefit from the extra resolution. Of course, one could argue that those differentiators don't ultimately matter, and that if its customers are opting for older or slower service levels, that can tell you something about the ISP's pricing competitiveness.
- Nrsolis 16y ago
  With respect to the service tiers of the various networks, a much more useful graph would include the mean, median, and standard deviation of the observed throughput. It should then be really easy to determine if DSL vs. FiOS is responsible for the skew towards cable companies presented in these graphs.
- techsupporter 16y ago
  "they lump together AT&T's old ADSL customers in with ADSL2/U-Verse, and, presumably Verizon's DSL with FiOS" I was wondering why both AT&T and Verizon scored lower on the graph than I expected, though it's a pleasant surprise to see my local cable operator (Charter) parked at the top should I ever need to switch. Perhaps Netflix can't easily separate the two? I know the hostname attached to the IP I get from Verizon reveals that I'm using FiOS, but the IP address itself seems to be assigned out of the same blocks that Verizon DSL customers use. I suspect Netflix isn't--at least for an external graph like this--putting in the computing resources needed to reverse look-up all the connecting IPs and parsing them for the individual provider offerings.
- TomOfTTB 16y ago
  I'm sorry but I don't see how this is a fantastic idea at all. First, this is next to useless from a consumer perspective. Because anyone whose actually tested a single provider can tell you speeds vary by geography. Time Warner might be middle of the pack overall but the fastest in your particular area. Second, they're really p#ss#ng off the ISPs here. If you want faster bandwidth out of the ISPs its better to privately talk to them than publicly embarrass them. Finally this reinforces the reputation Netflix is already getting among content producers which is the company doesn't play well with others. There's a reason why the head of HBO and Time Warner are taking hard lines against Netflix. Bottom line: Netflix is part of a content delivering ecosystem. If they offend every other part of that ecosystem it will be much harder for them to survive in the future
jerf 16y ago
Ah, interesting thing I just barely noticed: Compare the vertical scales on the US and Canadian graphs.
- InnocentB 16y ago
  You have to bear in mind that the Canadian graph is measuring kilbots per second, which is a far scarier metric :)
  - jerf 16y ago
    Wow, I was just talking about the numbers on the scale, I didn't even notice that.
    - pmchiu 16y ago
      It's funny that on average Canadian broadband performs a lot better that most American broadband providers.
sachinag 16y ago
They really should have labeled the lines themselves on the right side instead of just using the default legend in Excel. I can't really tell who the hell is on the top since there are like three different greens (let alone the colorblind).
thamer 16y ago
In comparison, YouTube has a page with your connection and your ISP compared to others: http://www.youtube.com/my_speed http://www.youtube.com/my_speed
- Cyndre 16y ago
  Thanks for that. A nice little tool for isp admins to check how they are doing in general.
- roadnottaken 16y ago
  great link, thanks.
danilocampos 16y ago
For all the shit I give Comcast, I must take my hat off to them for being at the top of the heap. And I'm not surprised – my Comcast service here in the Bay Area has been awesome. I get every last bit of my 20 Mbit pipe, Watch Instantly starts almost instantly and I always get the HD version of my programming when available. I hasten to add that part of this must be a function of competition here. I can choose from Comcast, DSL or AT&T's U-verse thing, so they have some incentive to provide a compelling bandwidth offering. Still – at least where data service is concerned, Comcast delivers.
- noodle 16y ago
  comcast's end product is not bad at all, compared to what is available in america. their problem is customer service and their corporate policies. i avoid calling them at all costs and only do so once i know for sure that my problem is unfixable on my side.
  - Cymen 16y ago
    Did you know they have a direct support forum at BroadBandReports.com? I used it a couple days ago and it is useful for smaller issues that you don't want to call in. Must be a subscriber and only you and Comcast can read your posts in the direct forum: https://secure.dslreports.com/forum/comcastdirect https://secure.dslreports.com/forum/comcastdirect
    - noodle 16y ago
      i knew about it, but every single issue i've ever had to call for has needed to be resolved by a service order. its never something technical. i've had my cable mistakenly disconnected a few times, or a line cut from utility work. i'd also note the irony of having online support for internet connectivity issues.
- dugmartin 16y ago
  Netflix over Comcast is also great out here in Western Mass - but it's probably because we are the only people streaming on our segment.
rdoherty 16y ago
I'm glad someone is showing average bandwidth rates for this many ISPs; I'm not sure I've ever seen any tech site test that many. I gotta nitpick the graph though, it's incredibly hard to figure out which line is which ISP (too many lines and similar colors). A regular bar chart with the ISP names under each one would have worked fine (since the avg. bandwidth didn't change much over the course of the study).
- mthoms 16y ago
  This community could make some very interesting visualizations if Netflix would simply provide the raw data used to make the chart. This would be even better if the data were broken down by zip code. C'mon Netflix, let us have at it!
mmaunder 16y ago
This definitely fits with my experience using Qwest DSL for my business in Seattle and Comcast cable at home. Comcast has consistently high throughput, low latency to my Seattle data center, fewer hops to the local DC, and for some reason Comcast routing seems to be smarter about routing via the higher quality of our 4 X 1 gigabit providers when I'm connecting to our local DC.
btucker 16y ago
I'm a very happy Charter customer in Massachusetts. I pay $30/mo for a 10Mbit connection
mmaunder 16y ago
They should also filter for geographies that providers serve. e.g. If one provider is serving predominantly rural areas, most of their trunks will be using directional wireless, leaving them at a severe disadvantage which is no fault of theirs. If we were then to rank ISP's on throughput, even though a rural ISP is serving a critical and under-served part of our community, they would be rewarded with negative perception.
- chc 16y ago
  A lot of people I've heard from in rural areas have much better Internet connections than I can affordably get living in San Diego.
  - chadgeidel 16y ago
    I'll second this. When I lived in Mitchell, SD (15k people - look it up) I had 3 ISPs to choose from (in city limits). I had pretty good throughput from 2 of them - one was wireless.
wildmXranat 16y ago
I am on their fastest tested network in Canada, Rogers. Just few months ago, Rogers upped our prices and dropped our monthly quota to 60 gb/month. That means I can use up my monthly quota by watching Netflix for about 3-4 days. Yeah, we are getting raped either way. It's pretty much impossible to win this argument as a consumer, even if Netflix wins their with the ISPs. I used to be with Teksavvy where 200 gb/ month was the norm. I just might have to convince my g/f and get her to switch. Just to compare, Rogers is $59 for 60 gb/ month, Teksavvy is $29.99 for 200 gb.
- kmfrk 16y ago
  Please don't use "raped" like that.
  - lincolnq 16y ago
    Offtopic, but do you find this especially offensive? (The GP's quote was "Yeah, we are getting raped either way"). If "fucked" was substituted for "raped", would you still be offended? What about "violated"? "shat on"? "murdered"? I'm trying to determine whether it's the content of the metaphor, the language, or something else which is offensive. (FWIW, my friends use "raped" a lot, and I sense that some are offended by it, so I'm trying to distinguish why.)
    - kmfrk 16y ago
      You* shouldn't trivialize a term and crime like "rape" - and doing it makes you look like a clueless, insensitive asshole, because there might be a rape victim who reads and hears you. Feel free to say "fuck", "shit", etc. for all I care. *The grammatically general "you".
      - lincolnq 16y ago
        Thanks! I want to know what you think of "murder" though. Why isn't it the same (or is it)? I feel like someone whose dad was murdered would be offended by the same principle.
charlief 16y ago
Rogers is the top ISP in the set, but according to some official statements, their systems inadvertently began severe DPI shaping on encrypted and P2P traffic since September 2010 around when Netflix was rolled out to Canada. This issue still remains today. I have a 50 megabit plan with Rogers and all my SSL traffic throttles the entire line with an exponential dropoff to 25 Kilobytes a second. The packet loss is severe and persists for all packets even HTTP. It takes a long time sometimes an hour for the connection to recover. You can imagine how many applications this would impact (syncs with large files, P2P, Dropbox make the Internet virtually unusable). I don't speculate on the matter, but here is some more information. http://www.christopher-parsons.com/blog/isps/rogers-network-failures-and-third-party-oversight/ http://www.christopher-parsons.com/blog/isps/rogers-network-... http://torrentfreak.com/rogers-bittorrent-throttling-experiment-goes-horribly-wrong-101213/ http://torrentfreak.com/rogers-bittorrent-throttling-experim...
jarek 16y ago
A graph of throughput vs bandwidth usage limit per ISP, pretty please?
aidenn0 16y ago
My ISP (cox) is near the top, and dealing with their customer service has been a breath of fresh air compared with any other ISP I've dealt with. On an absolute scale, it's so-so customer service, but on a relative scale it's amaizing how many things they don't do wrong compared to other ISPs I've worked with (Comcast in particular)
tlrobinson 16y ago
This is great. I'd also love to see some sort of "ISP score" based on how "net-neutral" each one is.
losvedir 16y ago
Wow, interesting, but a textbook example of how not to make a chart. I had to break out the DigitalColor Meter utility in OS X to tell which was which. Here's the list, fastest to slowest based on the leftmost point of each line: 1)Charter 2)Comcast 3)Cox 4)Time Warner 5)Suddenlink 6)Cablevision 7)Cable One 8)Verizon 9)ATT 10)Bellsouth 11)Windstream 12)Embarq 13)CenturyTel 14)Frontier 15)Clearwire edit: Ah well, I guess that will do, can't make them stand up in a column.
ebbynezer 16y ago
It's things like this that make me love this Netflix. By opening up and showing their customers the courtesy of their inner workings, they invite them to become more than customers. By showing that they care ALOT about what their users care about, content delivery performance, they demonstrate credibility, a key component of trust. Consistent trust building exercises such as these does more than a temporary sale ever could for long term customer loyalty, even if it can’t be perfectly measured. I would like to see more companies try the same, even if they can’t prove the ROI on a spreadsheet before hand. Why use a spreadsheet when you have a perfectly good gut you can check to see if it is the right thing to do?
jjguy 16y ago
Welcome to the opening salvos of the Age Of Preferred Internet. By publishing the streaming performance metrics of consumer ISPs, Netflix is making sure providers know they can influence the ISP choice of their customers. This as a warning, pure and simple. p.s., in case you missed it -- 21 Dec FCC ruling: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-21/net-neutrality-ruling-the-fcc-splits-the-internet-in-two/ http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-21/ne...
HilbertSpace 16y ago
My ISP says I get 15 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload, and speed tests confirm I do. For sustained flows, I get a solid 15 Mbps when downloading software from Microsoft. So the 15 Mbps is way above anything in the Netflix graph. So, the ISP can't always be the bottleneck keeping data rates below 3 Mbps.
- wmf 16y ago
  Netflix (apparently) can't measure anything above 4.8 Mbps, so 15 counts as 4.8 and the average is brought down by people who are on the el cheapo 1.5 Mbps plan.
bnycum 16y ago
All the traffic seems to follow the same curve, with the same dips and spikes. The Canada curve is different than the US curve, but there is still a curve there too. I'm curious why that is.
trotsky 16y ago
I think people are misunderstanding this report, which is surely their intent. This isn't a chart of how well each ISP performs in general, or even how well they perform in relation to each other. As a baseline, all of the ISPs on this list that I've used (ftth, coax and dsl providers) have been able to push to 90%-100% of quoted line speed 99% of the time. What this chart shows is netflix performance, which is quite different than general network performance. What goes into netflix performance? Total netflix service load, CDN pop load, CDN circuit size, SLA/QOS terms, the choices the netflix client makes about adaptive bitrates and shaping the provider applies to the traffic. Take a look at the US chart and note the correlations in spikes and dips across all providers at certain times - 10/21 peak, 10/23 valley, 11/13 valley etc. These are indications of aggregate stream load netflix wide and are an indication that netflix manages their peak throughput to be pretty close to their max throughput (as well they should). But it's also a strong indication that if 10% of netflix customers switched to a competitor overnight average stream performance for netflix would jump noticeably, perhaps even 10%. How their adaptive streaming works is another huge factor. First they measure your current performance to the CDN POP and then explicitly chooses to use only 60% of that[1]. So add 40% to all the ISP numbers out of the gate. TCP+HTTP overhead is another ~4%. Downloading something else while you stream? If the streaming sees more than a few headroom faults (ie 1000ms worth of data takes more than 600ms) the system will quickly adapt down in bitrate trying to do its best to never hard fault (buffering). It likely is considerable more conservative in moving the stream speed back up. Customer using 802.11b? Max throughput there is ~5mbps, so netflix will use a max of 3mbps. In an urban area on a congested channel? You may only see 1-2mbps at times. Microwave on? etc. Lastly, with the news that netflix is 20% of ISP traffic at night the network providers have every incentive to manage that traffic down. Look at the best US performer at ~2700kbits. The fastest HD stream is 4800kbits - Nearly twice the speed. Worst case if an ISP allowed full rate streaming they might increase their peak network load by 10% or more. Who was it that announced netflix is now 20% of night time traffic? Our old friend sandvine, provider of the DPI gear made famous by comcast using it to throttle bittorrent. This tells us two things - 1) sandvine is on net at at least a few major broadband providers and 2) by announcing that number they are implicitly telling network managers that they can help reduce that traffic. Netflix makes it very easy to do fine grained control on bitrates. If you are watching the HTTP headers you know exactly which customers are on which stream rate without having to count the throughput. Most users won't notice a QOE change from 4800kbits to 3200kbits. Want to cut your network traffic? Use DPI to identify the higher rates and label them bulk-toofast. Then either explicitly rate limit them, give them a low queue priority or simply route the acks through a big buffer under performing router or indirect route. Once the adaptive bitrate slows down to a rate you like switch the label. The more subtle of these methods are much, much harder to detect than the comcast RST's were, and wouldn't technically violate any net neutrality rules in place. [1] http://www.breakingpointsystems.com/community/blog/emulating-netflix-delivering-video-through-the-cloud/ http://www.breakingpointsystems.com/community/blog/emulating...
adestefan 16y ago
There's a major flaw with this chart: companies that offer more than one connection service have all their services lumped together. The reason Comcast, Cox and Charter are at the top is because they're cable-only systems. Most of the other companies on that chart offer a mix of DSL, wireless and FTTH services.

178 points by carson 16y ago

This is not a very useful graph to assign blame. :) I've always wondered why I don't always get movies in streamed in HD even for movies available in HD. Almost anytime of the day, I can saturate my DSL line's download bandwidth from fast sites such as Amazon S3. But Netflix doesn't always stream in HD even though my link is faster than what's required (4800 Kbps). I suspect the bottleneck is at Netflix's end.

illumin8 16y ago
The bottleneck is most likely not at Netflix's end. They use a number of CDNs, such as Akamai and Level 3. These CDNs usually co-locate a box right at your ISP. So, it is entirely up to your ISP how much of that bandwidth makes it through to you. I can assure you, Akamai content is fully capable of saturating your tiny broadband connection. I regularly download large files hosted on Akamai (commercial software) and achieve download rates of 2MB/sec on my 20 megabit Cablevision line. However, ISPs do "manage" Netflix traffic. How they choose to manage it varies by ISP, but it might be something as simple as giving streaming traffic a different priority over web traffic, which tends to be more latency sensitive. Joe sixpack tends to complain when his browser takes longer than a few seconds to load a page, which ties up a customer service line. If your Netflix stream automatically switches from HD to non-HD, you might not even notice because they've made their software pretty good at adapting to changes in available bandwidth.
SoftwareMaven 16y ago
Are you using a dns provider like opendns or google? I am and it drastically affects streaming rates because you get sent to the wrong place in the cdn. I changed my streaming box's dns server to my isp's and got much better service from Netflix.
- anonymous246 16y ago
  Thanks a lot. Yes, I use Google DNS. I will be sure to try this out.

bbatsell 16y ago

This is a fantastic idea. There are a few elements to it that one could use to dispute its value — for example, Netflix has no way of knowing what level of service a customer has paid for. They also don't appear to differentiate between different types of service from a single ISP (e.g., they lump together AT&T's old ADSL customers in with ADSL2/U-Verse, and, presumably Verizon's DSL with FiOS). I would hope that they are also filtering for sessions where a higher bitrate is requested, which Netflix's Silverlight app doesn't do unless the window/screen is large enough to benefit from the extra resolution. Of course, one could argue that those differentiators don't ultimately matter, and that if its customers are opting for older or slower service levels, that can tell you something about the ISP's pricing competitiveness.

Nrsolis 16y ago
With respect to the service tiers of the various networks, a much more useful graph would include the mean, median, and standard deviation of the observed throughput. It should then be really easy to determine if DSL vs. FiOS is responsible for the skew towards cable companies presented in these graphs.
techsupporter 16y ago
"they lump together AT&T's old ADSL customers in with ADSL2/U-Verse, and, presumably Verizon's DSL with FiOS" I was wondering why both AT&T and Verizon scored lower on the graph than I expected, though it's a pleasant surprise to see my local cable operator (Charter) parked at the top should I ever need to switch. Perhaps Netflix can't easily separate the two? I know the hostname attached to the IP I get from Verizon reveals that I'm using FiOS, but the IP address itself seems to be assigned out of the same blocks that Verizon DSL customers use. I suspect Netflix isn't--at least for an external graph like this--putting in the computing resources needed to reverse look-up all the connecting IPs and parsing them for the individual provider offerings.
TomOfTTB 16y ago
I'm sorry but I don't see how this is a fantastic idea at all. First, this is next to useless from a consumer perspective. Because anyone whose actually tested a single provider can tell you speeds vary by geography. Time Warner might be middle of the pack overall but the fastest in your particular area. Second, they're really p#ss#ng off the ISPs here. If you want faster bandwidth out of the ISPs its better to privately talk to them than publicly embarrass them. Finally this reinforces the reputation Netflix is already getting among content producers which is the company doesn't play well with others. There's a reason why the head of HBO and Time Warner are taking hard lines against Netflix. Bottom line: Netflix is part of a content delivering ecosystem. If they offend every other part of that ecosystem it will be much harder for them to survive in the future

jerf 16y ago

Ah, interesting thing I just barely noticed: Compare the vertical scales on the US and Canadian graphs.

InnocentB 16y ago
You have to bear in mind that the Canadian graph is measuring kilbots per second, which is a far scarier metric :)
- jerf 16y ago
  Wow, I was just talking about the numbers on the scale, I didn't even notice that.
  - pmchiu 16y ago
    It's funny that on average Canadian broadband performs a lot better that most American broadband providers.

sachinag 16y ago

They really should have labeled the lines themselves on the right side instead of just using the default legend in Excel. I can't really tell who the hell is on the top since there are like three different greens (let alone the colorblind).

thamer 16y ago

In comparison, YouTube has a page with your connection and your ISP compared to others: http://www.youtube.com/my_speed http://www.youtube.com/my_speed

Cyndre 16y ago
Thanks for that. A nice little tool for isp admins to check how they are doing in general.
roadnottaken 16y ago
great link, thanks.

danilocampos 16y ago

For all the shit I give Comcast, I must take my hat off to them for being at the top of the heap. And I'm not surprised – my Comcast service here in the Bay Area has been awesome. I get every last bit of my 20 Mbit pipe, Watch Instantly starts almost instantly and I always get the HD version of my programming when available. I hasten to add that part of this must be a function of competition here. I can choose from Comcast, DSL or AT&T's U-verse thing, so they have some incentive to provide a compelling bandwidth offering. Still – at least where data service is concerned, Comcast delivers.

noodle 16y ago
comcast's end product is not bad at all, compared to what is available in america. their problem is customer service and their corporate policies. i avoid calling them at all costs and only do so once i know for sure that my problem is unfixable on my side.
- Cymen 16y ago
  Did you know they have a direct support forum at BroadBandReports.com? I used it a couple days ago and it is useful for smaller issues that you don't want to call in. Must be a subscriber and only you and Comcast can read your posts in the direct forum: https://secure.dslreports.com/forum/comcastdirect https://secure.dslreports.com/forum/comcastdirect
  - noodle 16y ago
    i knew about it, but every single issue i've ever had to call for has needed to be resolved by a service order. its never something technical. i've had my cable mistakenly disconnected a few times, or a line cut from utility work. i'd also note the irony of having online support for internet connectivity issues.
dugmartin 16y ago
Netflix over Comcast is also great out here in Western Mass - but it's probably because we are the only people streaming on our segment.

rdoherty 16y ago

I'm glad someone is showing average bandwidth rates for this many ISPs; I'm not sure I've ever seen any tech site test that many. I gotta nitpick the graph though, it's incredibly hard to figure out which line is which ISP (too many lines and similar colors). A regular bar chart with the ISP names under each one would have worked fine (since the avg. bandwidth didn't change much over the course of the study).

mthoms 16y ago
This community could make some very interesting visualizations if Netflix would simply provide the raw data used to make the chart. This would be even better if the data were broken down by zip code. C'mon Netflix, let us have at it!

mmaunder 16y ago

This definitely fits with my experience using Qwest DSL for my business in Seattle and Comcast cable at home. Comcast has consistently high throughput, low latency to my Seattle data center, fewer hops to the local DC, and for some reason Comcast routing seems to be smarter about routing via the higher quality of our 4 X 1 gigabit providers when I'm connecting to our local DC.

btucker 16y ago

I'm a very happy Charter customer in Massachusetts. I pay $30/mo for a 10Mbit connection

mmaunder 16y ago

They should also filter for geographies that providers serve. e.g. If one provider is serving predominantly rural areas, most of their trunks will be using directional wireless, leaving them at a severe disadvantage which is no fault of theirs. If we were then to rank ISP's on throughput, even though a rural ISP is serving a critical and under-served part of our community, they would be rewarded with negative perception.

chc 16y ago
A lot of people I've heard from in rural areas have much better Internet connections than I can affordably get living in San Diego.
- chadgeidel 16y ago
  I'll second this. When I lived in Mitchell, SD (15k people - look it up) I had 3 ISPs to choose from (in city limits). I had pretty good throughput from 2 of them - one was wireless.

wildmXranat 16y ago

I am on their fastest tested network in Canada, Rogers. Just few months ago, Rogers upped our prices and dropped our monthly quota to 60 gb/month. That means I can use up my monthly quota by watching Netflix for about 3-4 days. Yeah, we are getting raped either way. It's pretty much impossible to win this argument as a consumer, even if Netflix wins their with the ISPs. I used to be with Teksavvy where 200 gb/ month was the norm. I just might have to convince my g/f and get her to switch. Just to compare, Rogers is $59 for 60 gb/ month, Teksavvy is $29.99 for 200 gb.

kmfrk 16y ago
Please don't use "raped" like that.
- lincolnq 16y ago
  Offtopic, but do you find this especially offensive? (The GP's quote was "Yeah, we are getting raped either way"). If "fucked" was substituted for "raped", would you still be offended? What about "violated"? "shat on"? "murdered"? I'm trying to determine whether it's the content of the metaphor, the language, or something else which is offensive. (FWIW, my friends use "raped" a lot, and I sense that some are offended by it, so I'm trying to distinguish why.)
  - kmfrk 16y ago
    You* shouldn't trivialize a term and crime like "rape" - and doing it makes you look like a clueless, insensitive asshole, because there might be a rape victim who reads and hears you. Feel free to say "fuck", "shit", etc. for all I care. *The grammatically general "you".
    - lincolnq 16y ago
      Thanks! I want to know what you think of "murder" though. Why isn't it the same (or is it)? I feel like someone whose dad was murdered would be offended by the same principle.

charlief 16y ago

Rogers is the top ISP in the set, but according to some official statements, their systems inadvertently began severe DPI shaping on encrypted and P2P traffic since September 2010 around when Netflix was rolled out to Canada. This issue still remains today. I have a 50 megabit plan with Rogers and all my SSL traffic throttles the entire line with an exponential dropoff to 25 Kilobytes a second. The packet loss is severe and persists for all packets even HTTP. It takes a long time sometimes an hour for the connection to recover. You can imagine how many applications this would impact (syncs with large files, P2P, Dropbox make the Internet virtually unusable). I don't speculate on the matter, but here is some more information. http://www.christopher-parsons.com/blog/isps/rogers-network-failures-and-third-party-oversight/ http://www.christopher-parsons.com/blog/isps/rogers-network-... http://torrentfreak.com/rogers-bittorrent-throttling-experiment-goes-horribly-wrong-101213/ http://torrentfreak.com/rogers-bittorrent-throttling-experim...

jarek 16y ago

A graph of throughput vs bandwidth usage limit per ISP, pretty please?

aidenn0 16y ago

My ISP (cox) is near the top, and dealing with their customer service has been a breath of fresh air compared with any other ISP I've dealt with. On an absolute scale, it's so-so customer service, but on a relative scale it's amaizing how many things they don't do wrong compared to other ISPs I've worked with (Comcast in particular)

tlrobinson 16y ago

This is great. I'd also love to see some sort of "ISP score" based on how "net-neutral" each one is.

losvedir 16y ago

Wow, interesting, but a textbook example of how not to make a chart. I had to break out the DigitalColor Meter utility in OS X to tell which was which. Here's the list, fastest to slowest based on the leftmost point of each line: 1)Charter 2)Comcast 3)Cox 4)Time Warner 5)Suddenlink 6)Cablevision 7)Cable One 8)Verizon 9)ATT 10)Bellsouth 11)Windstream 12)Embarq 13)CenturyTel 14)Frontier 15)Clearwire edit: Ah well, I guess that will do, can't make them stand up in a column.

ebbynezer 16y ago

It's things like this that make me love this Netflix. By opening up and showing their customers the courtesy of their inner workings, they invite them to become more than customers. By showing that they care ALOT about what their users care about, content delivery performance, they demonstrate credibility, a key component of trust. Consistent trust building exercises such as these does more than a temporary sale ever could for long term customer loyalty, even if it can’t be perfectly measured. I would like to see more companies try the same, even if they can’t prove the ROI on a spreadsheet before hand. Why use a spreadsheet when you have a perfectly good gut you can check to see if it is the right thing to do?

jjguy 16y ago

Welcome to the opening salvos of the Age Of Preferred Internet. By publishing the streaming performance metrics of consumer ISPs, Netflix is making sure providers know they can influence the ISP choice of their customers. This as a warning, pure and simple. p.s., in case you missed it -- 21 Dec FCC ruling: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-21/net-neutrality-ruling-the-fcc-splits-the-internet-in-two/ http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-21/ne...

HilbertSpace 16y ago

My ISP says I get 15 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload, and speed tests confirm I do. For sustained flows, I get a solid 15 Mbps when downloading software from Microsoft. So the 15 Mbps is way above anything in the Netflix graph. So, the ISP can't always be the bottleneck keeping data rates below 3 Mbps.

wmf 16y ago
Netflix (apparently) can't measure anything above 4.8 Mbps, so 15 counts as 4.8 and the average is brought down by people who are on the el cheapo 1.5 Mbps plan.

bnycum 16y ago

All the traffic seems to follow the same curve, with the same dips and spikes. The Canada curve is different than the US curve, but there is still a curve there too. I'm curious why that is.

trotsky 16y ago

I think people are misunderstanding this report, which is surely their intent. This isn't a chart of how well each ISP performs in general, or even how well they perform in relation to each other. As a baseline, all of the ISPs on this list that I've used (ftth, coax and dsl providers) have been able to push to 90%-100% of quoted line speed 99% of the time. What this chart shows is netflix performance, which is quite different than general network performance. What goes into netflix performance? Total netflix service load, CDN pop load, CDN circuit size, SLA/QOS terms, the choices the netflix client makes about adaptive bitrates and shaping the provider applies to the traffic. Take a look at the US chart and note the correlations in spikes and dips across all providers at certain times - 10/21 peak, 10/23 valley, 11/13 valley etc. These are indications of aggregate stream load netflix wide and are an indication that netflix manages their peak throughput to be pretty close to their max throughput (as well they should). But it's also a strong indication that if 10% of netflix customers switched to a competitor overnight average stream performance for netflix would jump noticeably, perhaps even 10%. How their adaptive streaming works is another huge factor. First they measure your current performance to the CDN POP and then explicitly chooses to use only 60% of that[1]. So add 40% to all the ISP numbers out of the gate. TCP+HTTP overhead is another ~4%. Downloading something else while you stream? If the streaming sees more than a few headroom faults (ie 1000ms worth of data takes more than 600ms) the system will quickly adapt down in bitrate trying to do its best to never hard fault (buffering). It likely is considerable more conservative in moving the stream speed back up. Customer using 802.11b? Max throughput there is ~5mbps, so netflix will use a max of 3mbps. In an urban area on a congested channel? You may only see 1-2mbps at times. Microwave on? etc. Lastly, with the news that netflix is 20% of ISP traffic at night the network providers have every incentive to manage that traffic down. Look at the best US performer at ~2700kbits. The fastest HD stream is 4800kbits - Nearly twice the speed. Worst case if an ISP allowed full rate streaming they might increase their peak network load by 10% or more. Who was it that announced netflix is now 20% of night time traffic? Our old friend sandvine, provider of the DPI gear made famous by comcast using it to throttle bittorrent. This tells us two things - 1) sandvine is on net at at least a few major broadband providers and 2) by announcing that number they are implicitly telling network managers that they can help reduce that traffic. Netflix makes it very easy to do fine grained control on bitrates. If you are watching the HTTP headers you know exactly which customers are on which stream rate without having to count the throughput. Most users won't notice a QOE change from 4800kbits to 3200kbits. Want to cut your network traffic? Use DPI to identify the higher rates and label them bulk-toofast. Then either explicitly rate limit them, give them a low queue priority or simply route the acks through a big buffer under performing router or indirect route. Once the adaptive bitrate slows down to a rate you like switch the label. The more subtle of these methods are much, much harder to detect than the comcast RST's were, and wouldn't technically violate any net neutrality rules in place. [1] http://www.breakingpointsystems.com/community/blog/emulating-netflix-delivering-video-through-the-cloud/ http://www.breakingpointsystems.com/community/blog/emulating...

adestefan 16y ago

There's a major flaw with this chart: companies that offer more than one connection service have all their services lumped together. The reason Comcast, Cox and Charter are at the top is because they're cable-only systems. Most of the other companies on that chart offer a mix of DSL, wireless and FTTH services.