When he switched to a VPN, his performance jumped from 375Kbps to 3000Kbps - the maximum Netflix allows. The result? A colossal surge in overall performance delivered courtesy of adding further network overhead.Īs the author notes (Opens in a new window), his initial performance using FiOS to stream Netflix without the VPN was 375Kbps. One Verizon customer paying for 75Mbps FiOS became frustrated and switched to a VPN provider to test whether or not the problem was on Verizon's end. Note the red bar.įrustrated FiOS customer installs VPN, sees performance surge

What Level 3's response makes clear is that Verizon is preferentially refusing to enable the links that would allow for better service quality, despite being paid to do so. Verizon tries to claim this is because Netflix has chosen not to spread the load, but given that the company built its own CDN (content delivery network), that doesn't wash. Note that there are four 10 GigE ports sitting unused on the Verizon side.īut the Verizon diagram, shown below, shows more than just plenty of unused capacity on Verizon's network - it also shows that the bandwidth providers Netflix doesn't use have plenty of extra bandwidth. Verizon claims that Netflix 'chose to attempt to deliver that traffic to Verizon through a few third-party transit providers with limited capacity over connections specifically to be used only for balanced traffic flows.' Yesterday, backbone provider Level 3 posted a response to Verizon's claims, noting that in Los Angeles, the peering between Verizon and Level 3 is literally accomplished by connecting four 10 GigE ports between a pair of routers. Unfortunately, a growing body of evidence suggests this isn't true. Not only has Verizon's performance become dramatically worse, the company has continued to try and foist the blame for the problem on Netflix, claiming that the online streaming giant is deliberately degrading performance by attempting to stuff data down specific congested Verizon pipes. Netflix has recently begun paying both Comcast and Verizon to improve network performance and carry its video streams at higher bandwidths, but so far only Comcast has reciprocated with better service.

Comcast throttling