Cantillon: Is the Netflix broadband speed index worth watching?

The living-room reality of broadband speeds, as users know, can be somewhat different than advertised, with the level of frustration dependent on which day it is and whether they remembered to pray to the broadband gods the night before.

The Netflix ISP Speed Index, therefore, is an interesting barometer, because it gives a country-by-country snapshot of the effectiveness of broadband providers for a specific activity: the streaming of Netflix audio-visual content in peak consumption hours.

The latest Irish rankings, published this week, don’t show any particular change: UPC emerges top of the pile, followed by Magnet and Eircom. For a whole host of reasons, including the way it delivers the shows and the various devices that people use for streaming, the average speeds cited by the index are far lower than the ISPs’ peak performance, Netflix admits.

The company also argues, however, that the index holds up as a compare-and-contrast study. It is “not a measure of overall performance for other services/data that may travel across the specific ISP network”, but it is a pointer to whether subscribers can enjoy the service.

Faster performance “generally means better picture quality, quicker start times and fewer interruptions”, all things in which both Netflix and its users have a vested interest.

Netflix’s claim to “provide transparency and help consumers understand the internet access they’re actually getting from their ISP” has been met with some scepticism by broadband providers. Its motivation for producing the index appeared linked to its campaign in the US for “net neutrality”, or the introduction of laws preventing cable companies from creating internet slow lanes for companies that don’t fancy paying extra for faster loading – like Netflix itself.

The stakes in these regulatory battles are high: Netflix has become a dominant force in the entertainment industry, but that doesn’t mean consumers can’t benefit from Netflix’s “transparency” campaign.