Virgin Media Named Fastest ISP in New Netflix UK Broadband Speed Index

Netflix UK, the unlimited movie and TV video streaming service, has launched a new Netflix ISP Speed Index website that is designed to give consumers “insight into which Internet Service Providers [deliver] the best streaming experience“.

At launch the new site includes data for the USA, Mexico, Ireland, UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The ratings reflect the average performance of all Netflix video streams on each ISP and should thus not be taken as a measure of general end-user internet connection speed or capability.

The latest February 2013 data from the new index suggests that Google Fiber in the USA provides the highest average Netflix streaming speed (3.35Mbps) anywhere their service is available, while Ownit in Sweden comes second on 2.99Mbps and is the fastest in Europe where Netflix is operating.

As in previous months cable operator Virgin Media had the fastest overall speed for Netflix video streams in the United Kingdom, scoring 2.37Mbps (up from 2.16Mbps in December 2012). On the other hand there wasn’t a lot between the big ISPs, although EE came last with just 1.77Mbps.

Netflix streaming speeds can be affected by all sorts of factors, such as the dynamic nature of different video codecs, wifi performance, an ISPs traffic management and the possible choice of either Standard Definition (SD) streams with a lower bitrate or HD videos with a higher bitrate (SD streaming is still quite dominant on Netflix).

The company claims that its new ISP Speed Index is based on data from the more than 33 million members who view over 1 billion hours of TV shows and movies streaming from Netflix every month. Sadly the latest data does not include any results from Mobile Broadband operators.

Netflix ISP Speed Index
http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com