In a continuing effort to lobby for free bandwidth at the expense of the broadband consumer, Netflix seems to have turned to a smear campaign to embarrass and intimidate broadband providers.  Netflix published their ISP performance metrics that managed to fool the media into reporting the data as some kind of broadband performance metric.  But the results probably reflect Netflix’s inadequacies rather than the ISPs’ because the numbers are probably related to the amount of peering bandwidth that Netflix purchased from the ISPs.

In the typical Verizon regions (especially those with FiOS or DSL), it is simply not believable that the Verizon broadband network is limited to ~2.1 Mbps per download as the Netflix data claims.  According to data from Ookla, US broadband providers generally have some of the most honest performance advertising in the world.  Ookla ranks US based broadband providers with an “promise index” of 93%.  A more probable explanation is that Netflix purchased slightly less peering capacity from Verizon than some of the other broadband providers, possibly because Verizon charges slightly more for interconnection to reach their all fiber broadband network and Netflix wants to intimidate and embargoes Verizon into giving Netflix lower peering rates.

Comcast on the other hand achieves around 2.5 Mbps per Netflix download stream which is one of the higher performing numbers compared to other ISPs.  This is despite the fact that cable broadband networks have far less last-mile capacity than DSL or FiOS due to its shared cabling architecture.  What might explain Comcast’s better numbers is that Netflix’s CDN partner Level 3 only recently agreed to buy an additional 200 Gbps of peering capacity from Comcast in addition to the 200 Gbps they were getting for free (see video).

Note: Aside from the peering capacity issues, some of the wireless broadband networks have limited capacity on the shared wireless networks.  Some of the remote towns will also have constrained backhaul capacity to the major Internet Exchange Points.

The fact is that many broadband subscribers regardless of who they buy their broadband service from can easily download well above 4-10 Mbps if the server they’re trying to reach is reliable, but broadband subscribers are generally limited by server performance.  For example, Netflix doesn’t even offer higher bitrates and HD on all their videos and even when they do, their peering connection to their customer’s ISP may not be sufficient.

This sudden interest in broadband performance seems more to do with Netflix’s free bandwidth lobbying campaign than being about actual broadband performance.  Netflix appears to be telling the ISPs to give them free or cheaper bandwidth or they’ll publish data that makes it appear as though the ISP was inadequate.  Netflix is employing a similar tactic to ESPN pressuring ISPs to pay a per subscriber fee for access to ESPN360 (currently ESPN3).

[Cross-Posted at Digital Society]