COVID-19 – Amazon Agrees to Reduce Video Streaming Quality
The latest to join Netflix (here) and YouTube (here) in reducing the bitrate of their streams – so as to help broadband ISPs deal with rising levels of network demand – is Amazon (Prime Video), which claims to be applying a similar measure “where needed,” such as when requested by internet providers and local authorities.
As we’ve said a few times now, broadband ISPs in the United Kingdom currently appear to be coping quite well and so the rising levels of data traffic from residential connections has been manageable (covered here); they’re able to cope with way above normal levels. Many providers also cache video content much closer to their end-users and this helps to significantly ease the burden on their networks.
Nevertheless we suspect that internet providers won’t object to what video streaming providers are now doing since there’s no major downside for them and it may even help to save a bit of money. The latest example of this appears to be Amazon’s Prime Video service, although they haven’t said precisely how this change will be implemented.
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A Spokesperson for Amazon said (The Guardian):
“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.”
At the time of writing it remains unclear whether they are making this change in the UK or indeed if any ISPs in the local market have requested it. In any case the real test is likely to come next week, now that UK schools have closed.
In other news it’s been suggested that the iPlayer (BBC) service may also be planning to make a similar change, although they’ve yet to confirm their plans.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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No doubt a good excuse to save some £££ on bandwidth costs.
Could also be to do with server capacity.
With everyone streaming full blast and businesses pushing cloudiness AWS and Google Cloud will be doing overtime.
I really do think some people have got their priorities a bit mixed up. I fully accept that many networks are coping just fine and many people have great Internet access – good for them. My generally rather poor 4G broadband (I live in the sticks) is actually holding up quite well as it happens. However, talking to my work colleagues scattered across UK, Europe and further, this is not universally the case, some people are struggling with connectivity – including in the UK. From what I have seen, I believe those reliant on congested 4G masts are the worst impacted.
Even if it is just a small percentage who are struggling with work connectivity, then everybody making a small sacrifice on video quality to help those people to WFH and reduce the spread of Covid-19 to me sounds entirely laudable. Also, it is not just about stopping the spread of Covid-19, it is also about ensuring business can still operate as best they can to help safeguard jobs and the economy. Hopefully bandwidth reductions can be targeted to those networks under the most strain over time but in the interim I fully support the cautious approach being taken at the moment.
Sounds like an “I’m all right Jack” syndrome, which as all well and good whilst you are alright. Might not be so alright if you get infected and critically ill and find that the NHS is saturated. That is already the case in some London hospitals where critical cases are being turned away – and we have a long way to go on this yet I fear. It strikes me as the similar, selfish mentality as those people who strip shelves of hand sanitizer and bog roll and then profiteer on eBay and the like.
Fred.
Amazon can get telemetry of how well networks are performing and adjust accordingly.
ISPs can manage their networks under exceptional circumstances.
Nice rant though.
I’d quite like to know how this helps our networks considering I can see both a lack of backhaul congestion at the headend, core, as well as the peerings with Amazon coping fine and well within traffic limits.
We don’t need Amazon, Youtube, or Netflix’s help to run our own network.
The folks on 4G aren’t happy people on fixed lines have faster services so I guess you’d best introduce loss, latency and jitter into your network, Ferrocene.
Those folks on symmetrical gigabit had best get slowed to where I am too.
Oh trust me Carl – we are affected too – I intend to give any money I get back under the SLA to the local hospital charity.
Put it this way – my GB ain’t hitting 80% right now – but I don’t really care as there are bigger things to worry about.
That said my 2yr old got it last week and after a blue light run to Hospital and 4 days of Calpol and cuddles she’s back to normal.
Delighted she made a full recovery, David 🙂
@CarlT
That will be no comfort to those who were already stuck with no option other than heavily congested masts that were creaking at the seams and barely fit for purpose before any extra load of bored kids stuck at home, people self-isolating and many more home working. I am sure those who are lucky enough to have an ADSL/VDSL/FTTP/COAX based service are doing fine. I can assure you that is not the case for everybody on mobile broadband – even before this shitshow. My 4G already drops to 3Mbs at times (all that clever telemetry and ISPs managing networks hasn’t been working out great for me), that is hardly sufficient for home working and there is no ‘fat in the system’ for extra load. Many people have had the same issue and it was made much worse with the flood of unlimited data SIMs 6 months ago.
As it happens I am currently getting 20Mbps+ at the moment and sometimes over 40Mbps because this is a very rural but touristy area and visitors are staying away (these are the speeds I used to get before the flood of unlimited data SIMS). Colleagues who are using mobile in other more built up areas are seeing the exact opposite where their bandwidth is being squeezed, latency up, common disconnects. Poor latency and disconnects can be a real issue when WFH as VPNs go down and it can take minutes to re-establish connections – not a great impression when holding conference calls and desktop sharing with customers.
A nice rant but what do the woes of those on 4G have to do with my fixed line service, and what prevents mobile operators from managing their networks?
You totally missed the point with the telemetry, too. The telemetry is to allow the content providers to adjust their streams depending on the recipient.
Again, though, a nice rant. Could’ve just been far more brief and said ‘I don’t like my broadband and am unhappy others have better so welcome their streams being unnecessarily degraded’.
Since netflix and Amazon are going a head with this, i’m going to pirate the content in 1080p instead, i’m sick and tired of politicians getting involved in tech when they do not understand it, BT, Virign media, EE, Sky and many more have said they have got the capacity to handle the presure.
I quite agree.
Most people only signed up to streaming services to get content matching their TV’S display. Which is how they sold prime movies and Netflix to us anyway.
I for one, watch mine outside peak hours and in 4k if possible. So i don’t put a strain on the network.
I think I’ll cancel my subscription and watch terrestrial TV. At least they haven’t ruind the picture quality yet.
My plex provider is not really set up for 4K and so they recommend 1080p anyway – i’ve been doing that for years Shawn and I 100% agree with you.
@Kevin The second Sky start to reduce the TV quality with some capacity bullshit I will be off too.
I’m not sure stealing stuff is a rational or reasonable response to the current crisis facing the world. Lots of people will have lots more to worry about than a barely noticeable reduction in streaming quality. Take a look at yourself.
Kodi doesn’t have that problem, so glad I never bothered with any of these streaming services, too many politics
No, But I won’t get hauled before a judge and face Prison for watching Sky TV unlike kodi
so you take your chance as they say