YouTube recently released the Google Video Quality Report, showing users how well their Internet service providers perform compared to others in different cities around the U.S.
The Video Quality Report has made its way to the U.S. after being available in Canada for a few months, and it essentially puts each ISP into one of three categories: HD Verified, Standard Definition and Lower Definition.
HD Verified ISPs are able to constantly play back video without interruption at 720p or more. Standard Definition ISPs are able to do the same for videos of at least 360p. Lastly, Lower Definition ISPs show slow loading times and consistent buffering for videos, including those at 360p.
While the Google Video Quality Report shows how well your Internet service provider performs, it also shows how many people are watching YouTube videos for each ISP in any given area, including information about how YouTube gets videos to its users.
Furthermore, suggestions on how users can improve the quality of the videos that they watch on YouTube are also given. There are seven suggestions that are given: Users can check their ISPs quality report, make sure others aren’t using too much bandwidth, keep their Internet browser updated, keep their browser’s plugins updated, clear browser cache and cookies, check if performance improves when they move closer to the Wi-Fi router, and restart the router and computer.
There are a number of other services that provide video quality reports to their users. One other service that does it is Netflix, which collects data and tracks ISPs from 20 different countries. Netflix has given the title of the fastest ISP in the U.S. to Cablevision, which has an average surfing speed of 3 Mbps. In fact, Cablevision has also gotten great ratings from the Google Video Quality Report.
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