[oostevo]

I can't think of any place that I've lived in the US which has consistently worse broadband performance than DC and Northern Virginia. This is especially sad given Northern Virginia's density of large tech companies and history as 'internet alley'[1].

[1] http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/internet-alley

[rayiner]

If D.C. and Virginia were countries, they'd be in the top 5 in Akamai's data, between Japan and Switzerland.

[Retric]

According to speedtest.net I have a 58 MBit download and 39 MBit upload. Yet, Netflix is basically unwatchable at around 6PM on weeknights. I literally get a better connection on my parents DSL than with Verizon Fios in Northern VA.

Remember Netflix maxes out at 3MBit/second and use useable at .75MBit/second so I am getting ~1-2% of my theoretical connection speed.

[rayiner]

That's an issue specific to Netflix, as far as I'm aware, and implicates a wholly separate issue. I'm fully willing to concede that U.S. telecom policy gives infrastructure companies more leverage over content companies.

[Retric]

I have personally had similar issues with youtube and other video sites, but besides that as a customer I don't care. I am paying them ~100$ a month and getting a terrible product. Also, images on some websites often take forever to load, so I think there is some issue with 1 or more CDN networks.

Hell, the battery backup in their fiber > coax box died after 18 months and they want 50$ to replace it. I don't actually care if it works though a blackout as my router is going down anyway, but the damm thing will not stop beeping.