Netflix performance on FiOS Internet service has been solid ever since Netflix paid Verizon for a direct connection to its network.

Even Verizon's basic 25Mbps fiber service should be plenty for Netflix, which streams in standard quality at 3Mbps and HD at 5Mbps. But Verizon sales reps told one customer that his 50Mbps service won't provide the smoothest Netflix experience available. For that, he needs to upgrade to 75Mbps.

In a blog post titled "Verizon Falsely Promising Better Quality Netflix Streaming With Faster, More Expensive Internet Tier," streaming video industry analyst Day Rayburn wrote yesterday that multiple Verizon sales reps gave him this pitch.

"Last week I contacted Verizon to discuss the renewal of my two-year FiOS Triple Play contract which already gives me 50Mbps up/down," Rayburn wrote. "Three different sales reps via the phone and one via an online chat all tried to convince me to upgrade to 75Mbps, with the false promise that it would give me better quality Netflix streaming, amongst other OTT [over-the-top] streaming services. I was told that with 75Mbps I would get 'smoother video viewing' and 'better quality' with a higher tier service. Of course, this claim by Verizon is 100 percent false and they know it."

In reality, the average Netflix video streams on Verizon's fiber service at 3.5Mbps, and that's better than all other major ISPs. When Rayburn pointed that out to Verizon sales reps, they countered that more bandwidth is needed with multiple people in the household.

But 50Mbps is more than enough, he wrote.

"During HBO’s Game Of Thrones Season 5 premiere, I had ten separate streams going on at the same time via HBO Now and Sling TV," Rayburn wrote. "All combined, I consumed just under 29Mbps of my 50Mbps connection and all ten streams had perfect quality. HBO Now’s bitrate maxes out at 4Mbps and some of the streams I had going were to mobile devices. Amongst the ten streams, they averaged 2.9Mbps per second. So even if I had a household of ten people, all streaming at the same time, going from 50Mbps to 75Mbps would not have given me any better video streaming quality over what I already have. Verizon is simply using the average consumer's lack of knowledge of bitrates and streaming technology to scare them into thinking they need a higher tiered package than they really do."

Rayburn, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan, was one of Verizon's most prominent defenders during its financial dispute with Netflix last year. He repeatedly blamed Netflix instead of Internet providers for the poor quality of video streams that occurred until Netflix decided to pay for direct connections to the providers' networks.

We asked Verizon if its sales reps are instructed to tell customers that 75Mbps provides better streaming than 50Mbps. A Verizon spokesperson said the company "reviewed tens of thousands of calls to make sure that's not the case and it's not." That review happened prior to today, apparently in response to Rayburn contacting the company about the sales reps' claims.

"We take customer feedback like Mr. Rayburn's and use it to help our employees have ever-more effective conversations with customers," Verizon further told Ars. "Our employees' goal is always to deliver the best experience for customers—100 percent of the time. We take customer feedback, and employee feedback, as well as data to continually improve the tools employees have to better serve our customers."

Rayburn believes that the sales pitch he received is not just an isolated incident, since he got the same pitch from three sales reps over the phone and one online.

"Clearly this sales tactic is being driven by those higher up in the company and isn’t something a sales rep made up on their own. And two years ago, Verizon tried to pitch me the exact same story, promising better quality Netflix streaming if I upgraded my Internet package," Rayburn wrote.

He accused Verizon of setting "false expectations" for customers, "which is bad for the streaming media industry and over-the-top content providers, not to mention consumers. Verizon needs to re-educate their sales force and do away with this sales tactic immediately."

Despite pushing customers to pay more for higher speeds, Verizon tried to convince the Federal Communications Commission that the US broadband definition should be kept at just 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up. When the FCC raised the standard to 25Mbps/3Mbps this year, Chairman Tom Wheeler mocked Verizon and other Internet providers for telling the government one thing and customers another.

Though fiber easily meets the new broadband standard, Verizon's copper-based DSL service does not. Verizon offers the slower DSL speeds in areas where it hasn't invested in fiber, but it still calls this sub-broadband service "High Speed Internet." In its FCC filing defending the slower broadband definition, Verizon said 4Mbps/1Mbps lets consumers "access virtually all content on the Internet," that those speeds meet consumers' needs for broadband and that "a higher benchmark would serve no purpose in accurately assessing the availability of broadband."