Most of the video streaming platforms have announced that they are lowering the streaming quality to SD if users browse the platform over cellular connections. This is to keep bandwidth available for all users.
After the complete country lock-down in India, these services have seen up to a 30 percent increase in data demand. This has made bandwidth consumption really high and has put a load on the servers of these streaming services. To fulfill the demand of all users and make services available, all the digital content companies have agreed to lower the streaming quality to 480p bitrates on cellular networks.
The companies who have joined this initiative are Star & Disney India, Sony, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, MX Player, Hotstar, Google, Facebook, Viacom18 and Tiktok. None of these services will offer high definition and ultra high definition content on mobile networks during the 21-day lockdown period in India.
“The digital industry has decided to act immediately in the larger national and consumer interest and to ensure the robustness of the cellular network,” digital companies said in a joint statement.
Telecom industry body COAI has also urged mobile consumers to use data networks responsibly so that critical services can run smoothly.
This change will be there until April 14th. If lockdown continues beyond that date, these services will keep limiting the streaming quality until the situation goes to be normal.
