Peak-time stability, regional sports networks, and anti-buffering performance during live events matter more than channel counts. Here's what we measured.
A service that averages 99.8% uptime across the month can still be unwatchable on Super Bowl Sunday if the outage windows cluster around kickoff. That's why we break uptime down by time-of-day and by channel type: a sports-first ranking weights Saturday–Sunday 1pm–8pm ET at 3× the weight of a random Tuesday afternoon.
The three picks above all measured <1% buffering on the top 5 US sports channels during peak, across all four of our test regions (US East, US West, UK, Germany). No other service in our directory hit that bar in Q1 2026.