Netflix

Netflix to slow Europe transmissions to avoid broadband overload https://t.co/SBZIUnXYRi

— Media Guardian (@mediaguardian) March 19, 2020

Netflix has agreed to slow down the speed at which it delivers shows to subscribers to reduce its traffic across Europe by 25%, which may affect picture quality for some viewers, in a deal with the EU to ensure broadband networks perform adequately as millions of people confined to their homes go online.

Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings agreed to slow the bit rate at which it delivers programming, which determines the size and quality of video and audio files, across Europe and the UK for 30 days. Netflix has 51 million users across Europe including 11 million in the UK.

I was kind of expecting that contention at the local cabinet or exchange level would cause people to get lower bitrates or lower res versions - makes sense that they should do it from the server side.

(How long before people start asking for discounts because they can't get 4K?)

I'm quite expecting Disney Plus to suspend the start of service following this announcement, the last thing the internet networks will need next week is loads of people 4K Streaming Star Wars and Frozen from Tuesday. It'd be totally reasonable in the circumstances.

I agree about the 4K issue. That'll be intriguing to deal with.

They'd be mad to delay, they literally have a captive audience.

That's all well and good, but they've agreed to reduced the data rates ENTERING the network, which is a totally different kettle of fish.

From what I'm hearing one of the problems is more to do with the prioritisation of VOD content over core networks than the amount of data itself. It's only becoming a problem because the amount of other high priority content, like VoIP, teleconferencing and remote desktop applications have shot up. The ways forward are either drop the bandwidth, or reduce the prioritisation (which would then result in more buffering and connection drops). Looks like Netflix have offered (surprisingly quickly is what I've heard!) to reduce the bandwidth rather than face complaints about more buffering.

Not directly telly related, but here in Jersey the two biggest fibre service providers have just announced they'll upgrade everyone to 1Gb/s for the duration, ostensibly to help those working from home (if you're as old as I am, you'll remember being lucky to get 1/100th of that on the wired network in the office). Of course they've also mentioned that you're welcome to stick with 1Gb/s by paying extra once the free trial, I mean current crisis, is over

I'm not sure if Netflix/iPlayer etc have any server presence in the island. Our internet links to the "mainland" aren't all that great to the best of my knowledge.

Amazon Prime also reducing speeds.

And now also YouTube.

I assume that HD and 4K content can still be viewed but not at certain times of the day.

Surely they’re dropping the bitrate, not the picture size?