According to a person familiar with the matter, Netflix, which is the world’s second-biggest driver of internet traffic, is reducing video streaming quality in Australia, India, and some Latin American countries. The firm engaged with internet service providers (ISPs) and governments in these areas and has decided to take these steps.
This comes hot on the heels of Netflix reducing streaming quality in Europe and YouTube reducing it to SD worldwide. But according to the person, Netflix is taking the situation on a case by case basis with consultation from governments, so it has not gone for a reduction in streaming quality across the board yet.
Such measures are being taken preemptively considering the increased internet traffic and strain caused by lockdowns and social distancing in multiple countries. But problems have started cropping up already. Netflix has assured that it is working on resolving the issue that caused an outage of the service in Europe and the United States today. However, It is unclear if the issue was linked to the increased traffic at this point.
Source: Bloomberg
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