Covid-19: Netflix to reduce traffic on networks to mitigate congestion

Video streaming major Netflix on Tuesday said it will reduce traffic on telecommunications networks by 25 per cent while maintaining the quality of service for users in India, as part of its efforts to help mitigate network congestion amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Companies like Amazon Prime Video are also temporarily lowering bit rates - a measure of how much data is being transferred - to ease pressure on telecom network infrastructure.
Consumption of digital content has gone up manifold as people are forced to stay indoors as almost the entire country is under lockdown to contain the spread of the deadly COVID-19.
"Given the crisis, we've developed a way to reduce Netflix's traffic on telecommunications networks by 25 per cent while also maintaining the quality of our service. So consumers should continue to get the quality that comes with their plan - whether it's Ultra-High, High or Standard Definition," Netflix VP Content Delivery Ken Florance said in an emailed statement.
He added this will provide significant relief to congested networks, and the measure will be deployed in India for the next 30 days.
The company, which has over 167 million users globally, has already undertaken similar measures in Europe. It doesn't provide country-specific subscriber numbers.
Netflix typically has many different streams for a single title within each resolution. This action would result in removal of the highest bandwidth streams, and so, subscribers will continue to have access to the service they have paid for (Ultra-High Definition, High Definition or Standard Definition) depending on the device they use.
In India, Netflix has a significant number of subscribers on the Mobile Plan which is Standard Definition.
Netflix's rival, Amazon Prime Video on Monday had said it has begun efforts to reduce streaming bitrates in India. Bitrate usually determines the size and quality of video and audio files. Higher bitrate indicates better quality.
The Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) had written to the government urging issuance of instructions to streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and others to initiate measures that will ease pressure on network infrastructure, which is needed for "critical" functions at this juncture.
"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…In India, we've already begun the effort to reduce streaming bitrates whilst maintaining a quality streaming experience for our customers," an Amazon Prime Video spokesperson had said.

A Hotstar spokesperson had said said the company's video streaming is based on adaptive bitrate streaming, which ensures that it is "lean" in internet consumption. However, the company said it is "prepared to reduce the bitrate for our HD streams, should the need arise".

Amazon raises stakes for rivals with 1-day delivery goal after profit surge

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Amazon.com Inc plans to deliver packages to members of its loyalty club Prime in just one day, instead of two days, part of a spending ramp-up that may curb near-term profits and will up the ante for retail rivals such as Walmart Inc.

Shares rose as much as 2 per cent in after-hours trade on Thursday as Amazon said faster shipping will come to customers around the world and said its profit more than doubled in the first quarter, trouncing estimates thanks to soaring demand for its cloud and ad services.
The news marks a costly challenge for competitors that will have to pour money into a logistics problem that even the king of e-commerce has yet to solve. Amazon expects to spend $800 million toward the shipping goal in the second quarter alone.

"There's a lot of error bars around this programme, especially from the cost side," Amazon's Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky told analysts on a conference call. "We (are) again, trying to take advantage of the fulfilment capacity and transportation capacity, especially with third-party partners, that we have."

While Olsavsky did not provide a concrete timeline for the program's rollout, he said, "We expect to make steady progress quickly and through the year."

US rivals Walmart and Target Corp have steadily rolled out two-day shipping, albeit on far fewer items than Amazon Prime customers can get at that speed for $119 a year in the United States. Olsavsky said the "vast majority" of Amazon's selection is available in two days, and the company has already expanded the number of goods eligible for same-day and two-hour delivery.


 "Amazon is cranking it up a notch, trying to set themselves apart," said Cathy Morrow Roberson, a former UPS analyst who founded consulting firm Logistics Trends & Insights....Read More

Game of Thrones: Piracy 'better than Emmy' for HBO as it battles Netflix

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Eight years after the first season premiered, the long-awaited winter has finally come – Game of Thrones’ final season is here. The television series created by David Benioff and Daniel Brett Weiss from the books by George RR Martin has built a rich and complex multi-thread plot-knot of epic battles, of the living and the undead, of long owed-debts to be paid, and of the culmination of clan stratagems to win the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms.

But at the end of season seven in the autumn of 2017, it wasn’t the clan warfare that had us cliffhanging, but the thought of the army of undead white walkers and their zombie dragon bearing down on Westeros.

Many millions of fans are waiting breathlessly for the denouement – and it’s a legion of fans that has grown exponentially over the eight-year run. In the US, for example, the audience has grown from 2.5m viewers in the first season (2011) to an average of 10.3m during season seven, which peaked at more than 12m viewers during the season seven finale on August 27, 2017.

According to MUSO, a magazine which specialises in piracy, the first episode of season seven alone was pirated 91.74m times and the season accumulated more than a billion illegal downloads a week after it ended.

So many people viewing outside of the official channels doesn’t just suggest the incredibly large audience GoT can attract, it also demonstrates the growth in illegal downloading of television shows – 11% last year – despite the effort of the streaming technologies to kill off piracy.
Piracy has its rewards


 But this hasn’t necessarily been a problem for HBO. In 2013, the boss of Time-Warner (which owns HBO), Jeff Bewkes, declared that piracy was: “Better than an Emmy” because more people watching the show inevitably led to more people deciding to pay for subscriptions.