Virgin Media, Ziggo make gains in Netflix ISP speed ranking

Virgin Media in Ireland and Ziggo in the Netherlands were among the service providers to make speed gains in Netflix’s February ISP Speed Index.

In Ireland, Virgin Media climbed three spots and overtook BT Ireland, Vodafone and Digiweb in the rankings to take third place with average speeds of 3.00 Mbps – up from 2.46 Mbps in January.

In the Netherlands, Ziggo reversed a slide in speeds that started last summer, rising to fourth place with an average of 4.06 Mbps – up from 2.68 Mbps in January.

Elsewhere in Europe Kabelplus climbed one place in Austria to take the number one spot with speeds of 4.29 Mbps; Telenet in Belgium climbed from fourth to third place with speeds of 3.63 Mbps; while in France Numericable overtook Bouygues Telecom to take the top-spot with speeds of 3.83 Mbps.

In Luxembourg, Tango climbed two spots to take second place with speeds of 4.08 Mbps; Sweden’s top operators Com Hem and Ownit retained the one and two spots, but AllTele climbed two spots to claim third place and Telenor’s Bredbandsbolaget jumped three spots to take fourth place.

In Switzerland, UPC Cablecom was the big mover, rising above Sunrise, Netplus and Swisscom to take third spot with speeds of 4.04 Mbps – up from 2.87 Mbps a month earlier.

Netflix says that its ISP Speed Index is a measure of prime time Netflix performance on a particular ISP and not a measure of overall performance for other services/data that may travel across the specific ISP network.

“Faster Netflix performance generally means better picture quality, quicker start times and fewer interruptions,” according to the SVOD giant.