Following on from Netflix yesterday, YouTube has decided to reduce its stream quality across Europe to easy the strain on the Internet.
Today the company said;
“We are making a commitment to temporarily switch all traffic in the EU to standard definition by default,”
Millions have been told to stay at home amidst the COVID-19 pandemic currently sweeping the globe. In turn, Internet traffic has surged massively over the last week by up to 60%.
Disney+ is also due to launch next Tuesday in Europe which will no doubt put more of a strain on bandwidth. Disney+ will offer streams of up to 4K quality.
Currently there are no details on how long the reduction in quality will last for. Netflix currently have a 30 day quality reduction plan in place.