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Amazon Prime Video To Slow Streaming To Fight Broadband Overload (theguardian.com) 43

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Amazon's Prime Video, the world's second-largest streaming service, is set to join YouTube and Netflix in reducing the speed of its streams across Europe to make sure broadband networks can handle the surge in usage as millions are confined to their homes. From a report: It is understood that the BBC is discussing whether to implement similar temporary measures for the iPlayer, which has the largest UK audience of any streaming service, along with Disney+, which launches across most of western Europe and the UK next week. An Amazon Prime Video spokesman said: "We support the need for careful management of telecom services to ensure they can handle the increased internet demand, with so many people now at home full-time due to Covid-19. Prime Video is working with local authorities and internet service providers where needed to help mitigate any network congestion, including in Europe, where we've already begun the effort to reduce streaming bitrates while maintaining a quality streaming experience for our customers."
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Amazon Prime Video To Slow Streaming To Fight Broadband Overload More

Amazon Prime Video To Slow Streaming To Fight Broadband Overload

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  • So why is internet rationing only happening in Europe?

  • Here's the RSS feed of the latest movies added:

    http://archive.org/services/co... [archive.org]

    • Archive.org is a great resource that is often overlooked when people look for things.

      A couple of weeks ago I saw someone mention "Where Eagles Dare", the 1968 WWII movie and I looked to see if I could watch it. My first attempt showed a number of sites where I could pay to rent or buy it. And then I noticed it was on archive.org.

      Why should anyone have to pay to watch a movie that's over 50 years old that starred people that are mostly dead?

      Richard Burton died in 1984. Mary Ure died in 1975. Patrick Wymark

  • but europe is so superior! (Score:4, Informative)

    by noobiedoobiedo ( 6194604 ) on Friday March 20, 2020 @04:38PM (#59854344)
    for years all we hear is how amazing europe is and how terrible america is but they cant even stream properly!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      for years all we hear is how amazing europe is and how terrible america is but they cant even stream properly!

      Nah, sound to me like these 'Merican companies (Amazon, Netflix) have servers that can't keep up with the demand, so they're blaming someone else!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thule ( 9041 )
      I was wondering the same thing! Is this just a preemptive over-reaction from politicians or a real issue of capacity? I read a comment from someone on the intereweb where German ISP's rejected Netflix CDN boxes.

      Maybe with all the anger over peering a few years back just revealed how much peering we do here in the US.

      • It smells more like a "Hey, I think we found a way to decrease our monthly bandwidth cost while still being able to milk our customers for the full amount" gambit.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      for years all we hear is how amazing europe is and how terrible america is but they cant even stream properly!

      Well, we hear Europeans get 100Mbps for under $20 a month. We never hear how oversubscribed those ISPs are. It could very well be that they are seriously oversubscribed. Or put another way, they have a 10 lane superhighway within their neighbourhood, but a puny 2 lane country road to get to the next city over.

    • This just goes to show how much politicians understand if modern technology. The internet in Europe is doing fine, with bandwidth to spare: https://www.de-cix.net/en/abou... [de-cix.net]

  • I live in Spain, on my laptop with a 4K screen and fast internet I only got crappy 360p videos...

    So, unless they plan to reduce them to 144p I see no issue: they will be showing the same shit as they did before.

    • I used to do Customer support for a CDN. Everyone would always tell me they have "fast internet" i would tell them, "fast within your ISP's network doesn't mean jack when its outside their network"

  • Convenient excuse for saving costs on bandwidth (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ffkom ( 3519199 ) on Friday March 20, 2020 @07:05PM (#59854740)
    No significant carrier in Europe, and no internet exchange node has yet reported any issues with an "overload" on their infrastructure. This is either complete stupidity, or a clever excuse for video streaming companies to lower their operating costs. There is not even that much of an increase in the traffic statistics, see for example: https://www.de-cix.net/en/loca... [de-cix.net]

  • Maybe you can read a book instead of watching videos for 16 hours a day.

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