European Commissioner speaks with Netflix about possible measures against peak pressure

European Commissioner Thierry Breton has spoken with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings about options for when things get busier online in the near future. Due to the lock-downs in many countries, many more people are at home than usual.

Breton spoke with Hastings, among other things, about the possibility of lowering the resolution during peak hours, Politico reports. Netflix could then reduce the pressure on bandwidth by offering streams in SD instead of HD by default.

It is unknown to what extent these measures are already necessary. Although some services suffered from capacity problems due to the many people sitting at home due to the measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak, it is unknown to what extent providers identify problems with the available bandwidth at peak times.

The European Commission and BEREC, the umbrella organization of European telecom regulators, want to set up a system to be able to anticipate capacity problems in good time and to anticipate them. Netflix has not responded to Politico’s message.