Hubrisnxs, it absolutely is a Verizon issue.
Netflix has plenty of bandwidth to the data center where the handoff is sone. The problem is that Verizon is letting their ports become saturated and they are refusing to do the (relatively inexpensive) upgrades to increase port capacity. When a cirucit starts to get saturated until recently with Comcast and Verizon the standard operating procesdure with ISPs was to increase port capacity to handle the incoming traffic. Why aren't they upgrading the port capacity? Because they are trying to setu a situation where they can double dip by charging the content provider and the content consumer.
Verizon has a handoff from the tranist provider that handles Netflix traffic and during peak hours that circuit is becoming saturated. If Verizon acted properly they'd add another port to accept the amount of traffic their customer are requesting from that transit provider. Instead they choose to let it sit there in its stautrated state dropping packets and making the experience for their customers awful.
The issue is all on Verizon as it is the Verizon handoff that is saturated rather than anything w/the tranist provider.