Millions of people in the country are working from home to tackle the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, which is eventually causing a strain on internet service providers. As a move to keep bandwidth available for home networks, COAI has asked video streaming services like Netflix to lower quality so that bandwidth can be saved.
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Video streaming services that are asked to lower the streaming resolution by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) include Netflix, Hotstar, Voot, ALTBalaji, Zee5 and Amazon Prime. The telecom operators’ association requires the streaming quality to be moved to SD from high definition (HD) as more and more people stay at home. Amazon has already begun to reduce streaming bitrates in order to reduce the burden on the networks and help mitigate network congestion.
Netflix too came out on Tuesday and revealed its plans that would lower traffic on network providers by 25% in India for a period of 30 days. This was followed by the streaming service’s similar move in Europe so as to reduce the internet congestion. Hotstar also revealed that HD resolution was available only to its paying subscribers, whereas another majority of users see standard definition (SD), therefore its data consumption is in control.
COAI has also shared its strategy to remove advertisements and pop-ups which may be replaced with public announcements on awareness regarding the virus. Not only in India, numerous other telecom authorities such as that in Europe are asking streaming websites to lower their streaming quality as a temporary measure to avoid straining networks. Netflix, Disney and other OTT platforms have already reduced their streaming quality to ease internet burden.
This announcement was followed by telecom operators such as Reliance Jio coming up with new offers for those who have to work from home at this scenario of isolation and self-quarantine.
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Narender Kumar
Always on the quest to learn and share the knowledge. Big fan of books (but not the self help ones) specially fiction. A grammar Nazi who loves to eat, cook, travel and watching thunderstorms.