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Verizon Tells Customer He Needs 75Mbps For Smoother Netflix Video
An anonymous reader writes: Verizon recently told a customer that upgrading his 50Mbps service to 75Mbps would result in smoother streaming of Netflix video. Of course, that's not true — Netflix streams at a rate of about 3.5 Mbps on average for Verizon's fiber service, so there's more than enough headroom either way. But this customer was an analyst for the online video industry, so he did some testing and snapped some screenshots for evidence. He fired up 10 concurrent streams of a Game of Thrones episode and found only 29Mbps of connection being used. This guy was savvy enough to see through Verizon's BS, but I'm sure there are millions of customers who wouldn't bat an eye at the statements they were making. The analyst "believes that the sales pitch he received is not just an isolated incident, since he got the same pitch from three sales reps over the phone and one online."
That's correct when the buffer is more than 5 seconds long and you don't mind the >5 second delay before the video begins.
So in real life, a faster data connection really does create a better viewing experience, so Verizon is technically correct, but each additional megabit per second provides less and less of an improvement over the previous megabit per second.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
So in real life, a faster data connection really does create a better viewing experience
No. This would only be true if the people at Netflix were complete morons. They measure the latency, and adjust the buffer. So as long as your bandwidth is good enough, and the latency is reasonably consistent, you are fine.
so Verizon is technically correct
No they aren't. They are flat out lying.