Netflix branched away from a traditional DVD rental service and embraced streaming services. As part of their migration to online content delivery, the company is now performing video streaming tests on the various internet providers and has published ratings of the different ISPs based on their streaming content performance.
The company wanted to analyze "millions of long duration, high-definition video streams" watched by subscribers, and wanted to send a message to the ISPs: Netflix isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
Charter had the fastest average speed of 2,667 Kb/s during December (the first month Netflix started collecting the data for public use). Comcast, a company widely criticized from subscribers and rivals alike, was No. 2 on the list, with Time Warner, Cox, and Suddenlink rounded out the top five.
Netflix plans to update the list once per month, so ISP subscribers will be able to check in and see how their provider is doing. Netflix also explained how its streaming service works:
"Clients may switch through a number of bitrates as they ramp up to the highest stream, or shift down from the highest stream if they cannot sustain play at that rate due to throughput constraints," the Netflix blog post reads.
Major ISPs Qwest and Clearwire were ranked near the bottom of the list, though it's unknown if these ISPs will care -- or try to improve. Many ISPs already blame Netflix and similar services for massive bandwidth consumption, along with trying to increase subscription prices while threatening Netflix with additional fees to access their pipes.
The idea of ISPs trying to charge more for higher bandwidth use has been discussed on a more frequent basis, and that isn't going to change. ISPs want to hold Netflix responsible -- and believe the movie distributor should pay them -- as subscribers should also pay more in subscription costs.
