To keep the Internet going during containment, sacrifices will be necessary. This Thursday, the American star of streaming - watching online videos - Netflix announced that it has decided to " start reducing bit rates on all [its] streams in Europe for 30 days ". This change should reduce " Netflix traffic on European networks by about 25%, " added company CEO Reed Hastings in a statement. The details of this announcement and its consequences are not yet clearly indicated.
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This decision had been appealed to by the European Commission. Faced with the massive increase in connections caused by the generalization of telework during confinement, choices were deemed necessary to ensure the proper functioning of the Internet over the next few weeks. "In times of #confinement in front of # COVID19 , teleworking and streaming are very useful, but the infrastructures can be put to the test" , had declared the commissioner in charge of the Internal market, Thierry Breton, at the end of a telephone interview with the CEO of Netflix on Wednesday. The representative of the Union asked the video platforms to reduce the definition (in other words, the visual quality) of the videos in order to avoid bottlenecks.
Quoted in the press release, Thierry Breton welcomes the decision of the Californian giant. This should make it possible “ to preserve the faultless functioning of the Internet during the COVID-19 crisis, while maintaining a quality experience for users ”. The European Commissioner also salutes the “ sense of responsibility ” of the company in this crisis.
Netflix's commitment is important for the quality of the functioning of the Internet in France: according to Arcep, the group represents around 23% of the total traffic measured by the main internet service providers Orange, Free, SFR and Bouygues. It now has more than six million subscribers in France
It remains to be seen whether the other companies in the sector will join Netflix to preserve the Internet: the firm's decision was announced a few days before the arrival of another giant on the European market, Disney. The group will launch its own streaming service in several countries on the continent on March 24, in the midst of containment.