In times of confinement, teleworking and online entertainment, Brussels and Paris are worried about the capacity of the infrastructures to support the load. Solicited, Netflix and YouTube have agreed to temporarily reduce the quality of the videos.
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While part of Europe has been placed in containment and the rest is asked to limit its exits due to the coronavirus, telework and online entertainment solutions – including streaming – are experiencing an unprecedented boom. Unfortunately, what is good news for maintaining the economy is not necessarily good for operators, whose infrastructure is more stressed than ever. In France, the saturation point is not reached, but the government calls for “good practices” to avoid overcharging. Affected by the same fears, the European Commission for its part obtained from Netflix a reduction in the definition to relieve the networks.
Netflix in SD
Wednesday, March 18, Thierry Breton, European Commissioner in charge of the Internal Market, announced on Twitter that he had contacted Reed Hastings, boss of Netflix. The object of the exchanges: the reduction of the bandwidth consumption of the streaming giant, which is strongly requested by its subscribers nailed to the house. According to Thierry Breton, several options were discussed during this first call, including the forced transition to standard quality (SD) during peak hours. Nothing would have been decided immediately, but the two men would have agreed to remember quickly to advance on the subject.
And it didn’t take long for Netflix to accede to Brussels’ demands. As of Thursday, on the occasion of a new call at the end of the afternoon, Reed Hastings announced that Netflix was going to switch to standard quality (SD) by default in Europe, and this, for a duration of 30 days. The firm will not prevent eligible customers from selecting a higher quality, but it will no longer automatically adapt to the maximum quality available, which was the case until now. With this measure, it aims to reduce its bandwidth consumption by around 25%, which should significantly contribute to lightening the load on the networks.
Note that other big names in the sector, such as YouTube, were also contacted. And according to a tweet from Thierry Breton, YouTube will align with Netflix and offer all of its videos in SD quality by default on the Old Continent.
In addition to these targeted requests, the European Commission also intends to set up tools to monitor the load of network infrastructures in Europe with the support of Berec, the body of European regulators of electronic communications (of which Arcep is a member) . Thus, if the EU were to approach saturation, emergency measures could be taken quickly to avoid a catastrophic scenario with breakdown of communications. The priority displayed is the protection of teleworkers, online education and remote medical consultation services.
I welcome the very prompt action that #Netflix has taken to preserve the smooth functioning of the Internet during the # COVID19 crisis while maintaining a good experience for users ????????????????
CEO @reedhastings demonstrates a strong sense of #responsibilityhttps://t.co/FE2gUgIFuU
– Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) March 20, 2020
Government asks French people to do the right thing
In France, the government has just issued a press release to signal that it “Follows with great attention the ramp-up of the various networks” and share a “Message of vigilance and responsibility”. Initially, the State Secretariat in charge of Digital is pleased that no major incident has been reported so far on the networks and welcomes “The daily mobilization of operators”. To ensure that this continues, two calls are nevertheless made.
First, by associating with Brussels, the government is addressing “To content providers with high bandwidth consumption (VoD, streaming, online games, etc.)”, to whom he asks to “Take the appropriate technical measures to limit the consumption of their services in the coming hours and days”. The actors concerned have already been contacted by the State Secretariat for Digital Affairs.
The general public is also asked to adopt “Some good consumption practices”. Three points in particular are raised. The government invites the French to favor fixed connections (Wi-Fi) to the detriment of 3G / 4G for heavy uses, such as viewing videos. It also suggests uploading content during off-peak hours (“After 11pm) rather than streaming playback. Finally, he asks to ignore the videos “In very high definition (and in particular 4K)”, which shouldn’t be a superhuman effort for a few weeks.
Last shot to play before saturation
Remember that operators cannot restrict streaming content without violating the principle of net neutrality, hence the request from Brussels and Paris addressed to heavyweights in the sector, and already accepted by Netflix and YouTube. If this were not enough and the bandwidth is dangerously reduced, one can however imagine that the stake would be sufficient for the European Commission to suspend said net neutrality before asking operators to take the necessary measures.
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