Netflix got a bit faster on Comcast after opening its wallet
Netflix performance on Comcast, which had been deteriorating for months, finally got a little better in February according to Netflix's latest speed rankings.Netflix streamed at an average of 1.68Mbps on Comcast in the US in February, up from 1.51Mbps in January.
Context & Ripple Effects
The improvement is small but the mechanism is the story. After months of declining Netflix speeds on Verizon and Comcast turned a technical dispute into a public one, Netflix agreed in late February to [[a:1202726|pay Comcast directly for interconnection rather than routing through congested intermediaries]] — and its own ISP rankings show the first measurable payoff: 1.68Mbps average on Comcast in February, up from 1.51Mbps in January.
Why it matters goes beyond the numbers: Netflix was by 2011 already bigger than Comcast itself in traffic terms, and Comcast held a 2012 crown as the fastest broadband provider in the U.S. — so a top-ranked network delivering degraded Netflix streams was an awkward position for both sides. The pickup landed amid wide pickup of the story (Engadget, Wired, ZDNet and others) and analyst commentary that the arrangement, however effective, undermines net neutrality principles by making payment the path to good performance.
First-order effects
- Netflix subscribers on Comcast get measurably better streams starting with February's data, ending a multi-month decline that had made the country's biggest broadband pipe one of Netflix's worst performers.
- Comcast converts a peering dispute into a paid-interconnection revenue line, setting a template other large ISPs can demand from Netflix.
Second-order effects
- Verizon, whose subscribers saw the same months-long Netflix degradation, now faces subscriber pressure to strike a comparable paid deal rather than keep blaming congestion — and reports circulating alongside this story suggest Netflix is already negotiating similar arrangements abroad, including reportedly with a Norwegian ISP.
- Transit-based delivery loses standing: content distributors that cannot pay for direct interconnection risk structurally worse quality on major networks, shifting bargaining power toward last-mile owners.
Third-order effects
- If paid interconnection becomes the norm, streaming quality becomes a function of negotiating leverage rather than neutral routing — exactly the outcome analysts flagged when the deal was announced, and a concrete test case for the net neutrality debate then running in Washington.
- ISPs gain a new monetization layer over content companies, potentially reshaping how streaming services budget infrastructure versus content licensing.
The trend: Internet video delivery is moving from free peering toward paid last-mile interconnection, letting the largest access networks price the quality that streaming services deliver to their own subscribers.