European countries climb Netflix Speed Index
January 15, 2020
Several European countries experienced sizable gains across multiple services on December’s Netflix ISP Speed Index, a monthly update on which Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide the best prime time Netflix streaming experience.
The final month of 2019 saw upticks in Bolivia, Hungary and Poland. Bolivia had the largest increase as Entel jumped 0.73 Megabits per second (Mbps) to an average of 3.34 Mbps. Elsewhere in the region, COMTECO rose 0.35 Mbps to an average of 2.92 Mbps.
Poland, meanwhile saw increases across the highest number of services (5). Inea leapt 0.39 Mbps, UPC increased by 0.38 Mbps, Vectra and Toya each rose 0.35 Mbps and Multi Media went up 0.31 Mbps. Their average speeds for the month of December ranged from 4.56 Mbps to 4.42 Mbps.
In nearby Hungary, three service providers went up. Telekom rose 0.45 Mbps, while Digi and UPC each saw increases of 0.41 Mbps. These upticks brought their respective averages up to 5.01 Mbps, 4.99 Mbps and 4.72 Mbps, respectively.
Not surprisingly, two of these countries also saw movement on the country rankings. Poland and Bolivia each moved up three spots to 29 and 49, respectively.
One service, Tigo Star, got a boost in two different countries: Guatemala, which rose 0.56 Mbps, and Honduras, which rose 0.31 Mbps. Other notable increases in December included SKYCable in the Philippines (up 0.48 Mbps), Taiwan’s KBro (up 0.31 Mbps) and Indonesia’s MNC Play (up 0.31 Mbps).
The number of services that experienced decreases in December was much smaller. Kuwait’s Qualitynet dropped 0.34 Mbps to an average of 3.24 Mbps. Israel’s 099.net fell 0.28 Mbps to an average of 2.34 Mbps.
No doubt at least partly related to Qualitynet’s drop, Kuwait dipped four spots to 41 on the country rankings. Hong Kong and Thailand tied for the biggest drop, each falling seven spots to 15 and 22, respectively. Elsewhere in Asia, Singapore saw a decline for the second month in a row, this time from 16 to 19.
The biggest increase belonged to Germany, which jumped five spots to 12. Several other European countries saw upticks. Finland rose four spots to 16 and Greece rose three spots to 25. In South America, Brazil jumped four spots to 29 and Argentina moved up three spots to 37.