With much of the world either in self quarantine or practicing social distancing, telecom companies around the globe are seeing a huge spike in bandwidth, and they’re struggling to keep up. Much of that bandwidth is due to Netflix streaming, which is understandable, given the fact that many people find themselves with nothing much to do other than stream their favorite shows.
To ease the burden on ISPs, Netflix has been taking steps to cut the quality of their streaming, a move designed to decrease traffic by about 25%. The move was announced in Canada shortly after it was announced in Europe, and it’s likely on its way to the US as well.
"We believe that this will provide significant relief to congested networks and will be deploying it in Canada for the next 30 days," said Ken Florance, vice president of content delivery in a statement on March 26th.
Netflix isn’t the only streaming service to reduce its video quality. CraveTV, the Bell Media streaming service that offers popular HBO and Showtime programs to Canadian subscribers has followed suit.
"Crave does plan to temporarily reduce the quality of streams on certain devices," the company said in a statement, also on March 26th.
While the measures are designed to be temporary, there’s no telling how long they’ll actually remain in effect as the Covid-19 pandemic worsens across the globe. We expect other streamers to follow suit in short order, but don’t worry, all of your favorite shows should still be available for streaming and many may not even notice the reduced quality!
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