If you're in rural Australia, Netflix has a message for you - your internet isn't that bad.
Chris Jaffe, Netflix's vice president of product innovation, tells AAP the streaming giant had developed technology to allow users in even the most remote locations to access the service.
"Australia, you think you have the worst internet in the world. We know better than that. Don't feel so bad about that. You don't have the worst internet in the world, we know that for a fact," Jaffe said.
Now Netflix can prove it. On Tuesday, Netflix released their first Internet Service Provider rankings for Australia and New Zealand. The index measures in megabits per second the average prime time bitrate for Netflix content streamed to members each month, or basically how fast an internet provider delivers Netflix content to a device.
The results were surprising. Not only did it show which Australian internet provider has the fastest speeds, it also showed that Australia's internet is on par with the rest of the world.
TPG with an average speed of 3.36mbps was the fastest Australian internet provider. Second was Optus with 3.27 followed by iinet with 3.24. Last on the list of seven companies measured was Telstra with an average speed of 2.23mbps.
In the United States, only five of the 16 companies measured speeds above Australia's TPG. The lowest speed was just 1.11mbps. Six companies have internet average speeds of under 2.32mbps.
While Australians complain about internet speeds, our much maligned broadband is something that South Americans can only dream of.
Costa Ricans are bingeing on Netflix with top average speeds of only 2.15mbps. In Peru, the three internet providers offer speeds varying between 2.59mbps and 0.78mbps. In Jamaica, there are people watching Daredevil with speeds of 0.66mbps.
"It doesn't matter where you are, it really is driven by the kind of network that you are on at that very moment," Jaffe said.
Jaffe says even in the most remote locations, with the slowest speeds, watching House of Cards, Daredevil and Orange is The New Black is possible. The company spends millions on creating technology that allows streaming to adapt to different internet speeds and devices. Regional and outback Australia, he said, aren't a problem.
Every episode of every Netflix show is attached with hundreds of codes to allow it to change quality as the show is streaming based on the quality of the internet speed available at any given time.
"If you have great bandwidth and you have a smart TV plugged into the wall you are going to have a beautiful 4K experience, it's going to be great. If you are somewhere in a rural area or in busy downtown Sydney on your mobile phone, you may not have that kind of bandwidth that is comparable to what we have here - we need to give you a different video file for that.
"In real time our system adapts to that and it says what is the best quality that we can give you right now."
In rural Australia, the best quality is still better than a lot of places in the world.
NETFLIX I.S.P. TOP SPEED BY COUNTRY:
United States: Verizon - FIOS 3.55
Canada: Bell Canada Fibre Optic 3.64
Argentina: Telecentro 3.28
Australia: TPG 3.36
Austria: Liwest 4.34
Belgium: Voo 4.09
Brazil: Live TIM 3.42
Chile: GTD 3.23
Colombia: Telemex 2.79
Costa Rica: Cabletica 2.15
Denmark: Waoo (Trefor) 4.01
Equador: Netlife 3.08
Finland: Anvia 3.43
France: Numericable 3.87
Germany: Unitymedia Kabelbw 4.03
Ireland: UPC 3.41
Jamaica: Flow 2.62
Luxembourg: Numericable 4.22
Mexico: Totalplay 3.6
Netherlands: Caiway 4.23
New Zealand: Snap 3.77
Norway: Get 3.9
Panama: Cable Onda 2.78
Peru: Movistar 2.59
Sweden: Ownit 3.97
Switzerland: 4.5
United Kingdom: Virgin 3.74
Uruguay: Antel 2.77
