There is no need to reduce video streaming quality, experts and internet service providers say after Amazon, Disney+, Netflix and YouTube have responded to a request from EU.
Amazon, Disney+, Netflix & YouTube
Netflix was the first streaming service to reduce its bitrate for 4K HDR, HD and SD video streams while YouTube has made SD the default option (the user can still manually select higher quality) after European Commissioner Thierry Breton urged streaming services in Europe to "switch to standard definition when HD is not necessary" due to the coronavirus situation.
Over the weekend, Amazon confirmed that it too will reduce its bitrate. Disney+ will deliver reduced bitrates in Europe for 30 days after launching in parts of Europe tomorrow. There are reports that Apple TV+ has also drastically reduced its streaming quality but the company has yet to comment on the matter. At this time, FlatpanelsHD is not seeing any impact to Apple TV+ streaming quality in Europe.
"More than enough capacity"
Is it really necessary? Not at all, a leading internet expert told Decrypt after EU urged streaming services to act.
- "That just tells me they don’t understand how the Internet works," David Clark, senior research scientist at MIT, told Decrypt.
Clark has been leading the development of the internet since the mid-1970s, according to his biography. He argues that it is a myth that the internet can reach a peak. For example, a corner of the internet in a local area may be experiencing congestion but "it is not a systemic failure". Netflix and others are already automatically scaling down video quality in case of any congestion.
- "It already does that automatically. You don’t have to tell them to. It just does it," Clark added.
His sentiment is being echoed by ISPs (internet service providers) in the UK, Nordics, and elsewhere.
- "We have more than enough capacity in our UK broadband network to handle mass-scale homeworking," Howard Watson, CTO of BT in the UK, told BBC. "Even if the same heavy data traffic that we see each evening were to run throughout the daytime, there is still enough capacity for work applications to run simultaneously."
- "We will NOT run out of bandwidth. Our broadband network is built for many times the data consumption that is being seen now," Thomas Woldiderich, Branch Manager for telecommunications policy at the Danish Energy Association, wrote in response to the news. "Netflix's action is most of all symbolism. The EU already has rules in place to deal with any potential pressure on networks."
- Source: Decrypt, BBC, Danish Energy Association
