Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

[rp2000]

Yup I went on the chat after this was announced to say are we going to get any form of a discount if this continues for longer than 30 days and the response was, we will review it after then and decide what to do.

But good point, will be contacting them tomorrow to say I'll be cancelling if they aren't going to revert back or at least offer some of a discount, like I said above, it won't be a loss for myself if I do cancel it.

Already contacted them on live chat today, just to see what happens. They just copy and paste you the 30 day spiel and then say they will restore things when the situation improves. No discount and no ETA.

I still don#t understand the maths tbh. They say they have reduced their traffic by 25%, but my bitrate is 50%. Maybe they only have 2 settings at their backend. Full throttle and half throttle!


rp2000

 

[5punk3monk3y]

When the epidemic is over and viewing numbers return to a more normal level and it isn't costing them as much in bandwidth. People maintain a subscription without necessarily using it 24/7 in normal times. Now they are and they're not making as much profit.

Umm what?
The EU requested that Netflix reduce streaming quality, nothing to do with viewing numbers and bandwidth costs.

If the EU had not requested it, the quality would not have been reduced....

 

[theone8181]

Umm what?
The EU requested that Netflix reduce streaming quality, nothing to do with viewing numbers and bandwidth costs.

If the EU had not requested it, the quality would not have been reduced....

You sure the eu requested it? Seems an odd request to make, especially when it only seems to be Netflix that's done it.

 

[5punk3monk3y]

You sure the eu requested it? Seems an odd request to make, especially when it only seems to be Netflix that's done it.

Netflix and Amazon, hell Disney + launched with a cap.

I believe that Sky have also reduced the bandwidth for on demand content and Sony have done the same for game downloads and purchases.

https://www.cnet.com/news/netflix-a...w-down-streaming-so-internet-doesnt-overload/

There is also a link in the op.........

I'm just happy that I have a US iTunes and Movies anywhere account as these seem to be full bandwidth.

 

[Raggs]

come back for a month watching the thing remake and it's 0.81 mbps bit rate looks ***** in places , only re subbed for the last kingdom tbh may aswell had gone for the cheapest video PQ option.

 

[V F]

Netflix and Amazon, hell Disney + launched with a cap.

I believe that Sky have also reduced the bandwidth for on demand content and Sony have done the same for game downloads and purchases.

https://www.cnet.com/news/netflix-a...w-down-streaming-so-internet-doesnt-overload/

There is also a link in the op.........

I'm just happy that I have a US iTunes and Movies anywhere account as these seem to be full bandwidth.

So when is this going to be a great wake up call to enhance Europe's and UK's broadband infrastructure? Not this half arsed version with things getting nerfed into the ground because it cannot take the load.

 

[5punk3monk3y]

So when is this going to be a great wake up call to enhance Europe's and UK's broadband infrastructure? Not this half arsed version with things getting nerfed into the ground because it cannot take the load.

I'm sure I read an article in March that the backbone infrastructure apparently is fine and could accommodate the "surge" in traffic as a whole.

If there is an issue it will be at oversaturated cabinets that simply don't have the capacity between say your home and the other 500+ people wanting to use the same line.

If you think about it the majority of people are at home in the evenings anyway using the same services has it fallen over then?

Another argument could be about the uptake which I believe was about 16million subs in March however Netflix already had 150million plus subs so yes an uptick like that would put strain on it's platform but surely that would be rectified almost immediately by Amazon .

 

[theone8181]

Netflix and Amazon, hell Disney + launched with a cap.

I believe that Sky have also reduced the bandwidth for on demand content and Sony have done the same for game downloads and purchases.

https://www.cnet.com/news/netflix-a...w-down-streaming-so-internet-doesnt-overload/

There is also a link in the op.........

I'm just happy that I have a US iTunes and Movies anywhere account as these seem to be full bandwidth.

That was almost 400 posts ago. I'd not seen anything say amazon had reduced there's, i ignored disney's as its so new they might have just launched it with reduced bitrate.

 

[Nexus18]

Lol........

So yeah don't be expecting the quality to return to the "normal" standard any time soon, even after this pandemic ends, they will be milking it with the savings they're making alone already let alone all the new customers.

Thank goodness I cancelled, getting my content elsewhere, which is completely untouched and looks glorious

 

[Ayahuasca]

Rightly or wrongly it really is no surprise torrenting is still so popular when streaming companies treat their customers with such contempt.

 

[malachi]

Rightly or wrongly it really is no surprise torrenting is still so popular when streaming companies treat their customers with such contempt.

Torrenting got popular again soon as you had over 10 streaming services, fighting each other for exclusive content.

Paying for more than 2 of them worked out more expensive than the basic Sky package.

 

[jpaul]

Torrenting got popular again soon as you had over 10 streaming services, fighting each other for exclusive content.

I like the theory (?) seems reasonable

https://www.ncta.com/COVIDdashboard
for the usa .. but the upstream growth +27% is greater than download growth ??? people are uploading 'stuff'

USA uploads +30%, downloads +16%, since it began, so guess the streaming companies adjustments have helped keep it in check.

 

[rp2000]

I was in favour of the 30 day reduction, even though it seemed a bit unnecessarily Pro active. They could have waited till ISPs complained about bandwidth, but fair enough they did what the EU asked.

Without a new statement being issued after the 30 days expired (last week), it stinks of bad customer service. Same goes for Disney+ and Amazon, although we know they are tiny in subscribers and usage in comparison to Netflix.

But not bad enough for me to cancel.


rp2000

 

[sparkymark75]

But not bad enough for me to cancel.


rp2000

Hence why I can't see them changing it back.

 

[Doobedoo]

Not really thought about it until now but I may well cancel Netflix. I’m not really watching much of it anyway and with the reduced bandwidth (rightly or wrongly) but no reduction I feel that the subscription fee may be better off in my pocket.

I’ll just make use of free trials to tide me over if I do end up finding something worth watching.

 

[Rainmaker]

Since Netflix's OpenConnect boxes are held in the ISP's own network, for exactly the reason of lessening upstream transit/peering costs and bandwidth, why do they need to also limit the bitrate? The content is basically already on the ISP's LAN and streamed to local (customer) connections. With the absence of a Netflix discount I've dropped down to the 1080p 2 screen package and saved 25%. Pointless paying full whack for reduced quality.

Ironically, as some mentioned above, torrent and other non-legit streaming sites have seen a massive spike in usage since February. I wonder how much bandwidth a x% bitrate reduction for Netflix/YouTube/Amazon actually saved overall, versus the converse massive upswing to phat torrent downloads by people compensating? For example - Covid-19 Measures Boosted Visits to Film Piracy Sites by Over 50%, New Data Show.

 

[Bobcat]

With the absence of a Netflix discount I've dropped down to the 1080p 2 screen package and saved 25%. Pointless paying full whack for reduced quality.

I have done the same thing, when they decide to go back to normal I will review going back on the 4k sub.

 

[Werewolf]

Since Netflix's OpenConnect boxes are held in the ISP's own network, for exactly the reason of lessening upstream transit/peering costs and bandwidth, why do they need to also limit the bitrate? The content is basically already on the ISP's LAN and streamed to local (customer) connections. With the absence of a Netflix discount I've dropped down to the 1080p 2 screen package and saved 25%. Pointless paying full whack for reduced quality.
.

Possibly because Netflix may not have the capacity at every ISP to fill all it's members requirements at that ISP at the moment?
It may be that not every ISP has those boxes "near" to the customer - for example some might have them in their main DC's but then have multiple links out to more regional facilities (IIRC how UK ADSL operates, and if you've not paid for a good enough link to a town and it's been near capacity during normal times but you've been putting off an upgrade because of the cost, then suddenly you've got a massive increase in use...).
Not every ISP has netflix boxes held in their DC's at all - I know it's hard to believe but IIRC even in the UK at one point the BBC were getting complaints about the bandwidth the Iplayer used*, despite offering similar local content servers. The reason being it costs money to provide the space in those DC's...
And the fact that the problem seems to be in some of the EU ISP's (not UK), many of which are cable in which case it is the internal bandwidth that is almost definitely a problem given that cable typically shares bandwidth between users on the "local" run to the UBR, something that used to cause massive issues for NTL/BY/VM in the UK especially in "student" areas during university term times at peak hours.

IIRC it was said right back at the start of this that the reason Netflix has put the changes in place was because of bandwidth issues with EU ISP's, given that most/all ISP's tend to build their networks on certain usage assumptions I'm going to bet that many of the older ones (and some of the newer ones) probably were not built with the thought that people would be streaming HQ/UHQ TV in huge numbers throughout the day, whilst many more were trying to work from home and do things like video conference.


*I think from some of the cheaper no frills ISP's that popped up to supply ADSL who then got upset that customers used more bandwidth than they did on 56k.

 

[jpaul]

so what are these netflix boxes ? links ?... I thought they had capacity (who doesn't, like bbc too ... ) courtesy of amazon data sevices aws ...at their data centres;
that we discussed earlier in the thread.

... for the aforementioned swapping to 1080p/fhd ... is the bandwidth not reduced across all levels of subscription

edit yes ok some further isp distribution was touched on earlier ... but, wouldn't they be managed by amazon .. otherwise the delivery chain is netflix - aws - netflix ?

London. That's the second UK Availability Zone.

But it will be distributed to colocations (ISP exchanges etc) after AWS.

 

[stockhausen]

Watched a couple of Webinars recently; about 25% involved stuttering sound or video; you frequently notice the same with outside broadcasts on radio and TV.

Whatever Netflix has done, there are still Internet bandwidth problems; frankly I haven't noticed much problem with Netflix \shrug\