The full-length movies streamed by Netflix have become one of the biggest sources of Internet traffic – reportedly accounting for 20 percent of all bandwidth used in the United States during the peak hours of 8-10 pm.
Now, reasonable people an argue whether that sort of bandwidth-hoggery is appropriate… but that’s another post. The fact that Netflix is sending out so much data across so many networks puts the movie-rental giant in a unique position to assess the performance of every major internet service provider in the US and Canada. And this week, they released their findings.
How does your ISP stack up? Mine (Verizon) is in the middle of the pack. Some of the other big providers covering my area — Cablevision and Time Warner — seem to fare a bit better.