Cablevision threatens Verizon's lead in speed on Netflix index

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) may have maintained its No. 1 position on Netflix's ISP Speed Index for January, but it's clear that Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) is becoming a bigger threat as it adds new speed tiers to its portfolio.

The telco's FiOS service narrowly held onto the top spot with the difference between Cablevision being so close that both service providers posted an average speed of 3.43 Mbps.

Rounding out the top five providers on the U.S. list were three cable operators--BrightHouse, Cox and Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA). While BrightHouse maintained its No. 3 spot at 3.38 Mbps, Cox rose one place to No. 4 to 3.32 Mbps, ousting Comcast, which dropped one spot to No. 5 with an average of 3.28 Mbps.

AT&T (NYSE: T) U-verse and Windstream rose one and two spots to the No. 9 and 11 positions with 3.03 Mbps and 2.15 Mbps, respectively. However, Frontier Communications and CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) dropped one and two positions to No. 12 and 14 from 11 and 12 in the December 2014 Speed Index.

Meanwhile, AT&T DSL speed rose one spot to 13, while Verizon DSL maintained its place at 15.

U.S. average streaming speeds are still slow compared to other countries. Luxembourg, Sweden and Switzerland have some of the top data speeds of 4, 3.46 and 3.97 Mbps.


Comcast dropped from third to fourth place. (Source: Netflix) 

For more:
- see this blog post

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