EU: Streaming Services Should Lower the Resolution

[engine]

With many people being encouraged to work from home in Coronavirus-affected regions, there's a concern that networks might become overloaded. In part this is because of the increased use of streaming services, and, of course, many more people working from home.

According to a report on the BBC, one EU official suggested TV streaming services should lower the resolution of content.

On Wednesday evening, European Union commissioner Thierry Breton called on content providers to switch to standard definition feeds to prevent networks from being overloaded.

Apparently, it's the same amount of data, but is spread over a greater time as people are at home, as opposed to being in an office.

the "busy hours", which normally run from 18:00 to 20:00, now extend all the way back to lunchtime.

[bbc.co.uk...]

[lammert]

Netflix is the first to positively respond to the request and will limit its streaming quality [deadline.com] to reduce bandwidth usage.

“We estimate that this will reduce Netflix traffic on European networks by around 25% while also ensuring a good quality service for our members,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement.

[engine]

I don't think the problem is it the main network level, but at the end user level, primarily because of the contention ratio. It can cope much better than ten years ago thanks to FTTC.

Interestingly, in the UK BT says it can cope, and the data levels it talks about are truly staggering.

The highest rate of traffic BT has ever seen on its own network is 17.5 terabits per second (Tbps), on an evening where there was high demand for video games downloads and streaming football.

At a data rate of 1Tbps, 125 gigabytes (GB) is downloaded every second - the equivalent of about 55 high-definition movies.
By comparison, average daytime use on BT's network this week has been 7.5Tbps - far below the highest peak that the company said it had been able to handle.

[bbc.co.uk...]

[blend27]

-- Netflix is the first to positively respond to the request --

Seems YouTube is following the suggestion as well...

Many Kodi streams are down too...

[not2easy]

Netflix (US) has long offered settings that let you adjust for resolution or I couldn't use it. I would be unable to stream at 1080p but 720p is acceptable on the smaller 31" screen in the office. The router cache helps. ;)