With world governments enacting various social distancing mandates and ordering citizens to stay home to limit the spread of the coronavirus, or COVID-19, many are finding themselves stuck at home. Worldwide internet traffic is up as users try to occupy themselves, with streaming services being inundated to the point of some experiencing service outages and slowdowns. The traffic to streaming services and the heavy burden on internet services have presented a unique challenge to overcome.
The massive surge in the usage of streaming services by consumers stuck at home has eaten up a large percentage of available bandwidth, which so far is being felt the most in Europe. To free up bandwidth, European authorities began pushing streaming services to act accordingly and reduce their bandwidth usage.
Acting in accordance with the desires of E.U. regulators, many streaming services and social media sites have begun reducing streaming quality to lessen bandwidth usage. Disney (NYSE: DIS) is set to reduce streaming quality for its Disney+ service across Europe for countries that already possess it and will be delaying the release of Disney+ in France, at the request of the French government. While Disney+ is set to release in other countries such as the U.K., it is currently unknown if they will face similar delays. Disney is joined by Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), which will be reducing streaming quality for all videos hosted on its website, and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), which will be reducing the streaming quality for its Amazon Prime video service.
YouTube (parent company Alphabet, (NASDAQ: GOOGL) had previously announced similar measures to Facebook and Disney in Europe but is now set to reduce quality worldwide. The default quality of all YouTube videos will be reduced to 480p, but users still have the option to raise video quality.
According to an anonymous inside source who spoke with Bloomberg, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) is following suit with its contemporaries but is approaching the issue differently, opting for a case-by-case approach rather than a broad approach. Netflix has already reduced its bitrate in India, Australia, and several South American countries. Netflix may be feeling the strain of such high traffic; however, as users across the United States and Europe reported mass outages on Wednesday.