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Virgin Bt Sky

Virgin provides smoothest Netflix experience in UK broadband

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By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

July 15, 2014 | 3 min read

Virgin Media provides the best prime time video streaming in the UK, securing a significant lead on BT, Netflix has claimed.

Virgin bolts ahead of BT

In the last two months Virgin, an official partner of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, has forged ahead of BT with higher average speed rates for Netflix users.

Virgin, which currently features the world's fastest man Usain Bolt and entrepreneur Richard Branson in its marketing, is said to provide the UK's fastest internet with an average of 3.3 Megabits per second (Mbps) in comparison to BT which provides 2.96Mbps.

Ranked third place was BskyB with 2.74Mbps. EE network saw significant improvements, rising into fourth place with 2.62Mbps. Fifth was Talk Talk with 2.59Mbps.

Since February, EE Network has raised its average speed from 1.93Mbps by around 60 per cent.

The Netflix ISP Speed Index is based on data from the media giant’s 48 million worldwide users who view over one billion hours of shows and movies per month.

A Netflix spokesperson said: "The listed speeds reflect the average performance during primetime of all Netflix streams on each ISP's network and are an indicator of the performance typically experienced across all users on an ISP network. A faster network generally means a better picture quality, quicker start times and fewer interruptions.

"The average performance is below the peak performance due to many factors including the variety of encodes Netflix uses to deliver the TV shows and movies as well as the variety of devices members use and home network conditions. These factors cancel out when comparing across ISPs."

Netflix was established in 1997 in California and initially specialised in mailed DVD rental.

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