There are so many people in the EU region streaming Netflix, because they’re stuck at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that the company has been asked to stop streaming in HD to help reduce strain on the network infrastructure.
Since a lot of people are now using their home internet connections for work, education, and entertainment activities, in order to avoid going outside in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, there has been a sharp increase in daily network traffic, including from video streaming.
This is a concern because video streaming uses up a lot of bandwidth, with standard definition using about 1GB of data per hour while high definition uses around 3GB per hour, and surges in activity may start causing connectivity issues. For comparison, Destiny 2 uses about 300MB, and things like Fortnite about 100MB, per hour.
So, EU commissioner Thierry Breton has asked Netflix to stop automatically streaming in HD, on those connections that allow for it, and instead drop to SD for all, for the sake of the internet and everyone’s continued sanity.
Because, if the internet goes down, it won’t take very much for everything to turn all Mad Max out there.
Via Business Insider.