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Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#621

Post by beachy »

abjKT26nO8 wrote: post #606
rococode wrote: post #246

I've been having major internet issues lately (Seattle area), have had 4 techs come try to figure it out. Yesterday's tech finally correctly diagnosed the problem as happening before the connection reaches our home but was unsure of the cause. He called his supervisor to investigate, and they found that the capacity for our neighborhood's node was nearly at 100%, while ideally it should always be under 80%. Fortunate…

You're describing an issue specific to US ISPs. It doesn't apply to Europe. From what I read even before the pandemic the US ISPs offered rather crappy services. In Europe, particularly in Poland, I don't have and haven't heard about anyone having any issues with connectivity right now, even though the country is in lockdown, schools and universities are closed, restaurants work only in delivery/take-out mode, compan…

I work virtually from New Zealand with my colleague in Lombardy Italy. Today I noticed some more serious degradation in video call quality for the first time.

But mostly I'm amazed how well the internet is working given the circumstances.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#622

Post by wccrawford »

kingo55 wrote: post #244
DavidVoid wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not always at a great bitrate though. I haven't really torrented anything in a while but I doubt there are many 20GB+ Blu-ray quality rips out there that you can download in a reasonable amount of time. EDIT: after reading the replies I stand corrected; it seems like there are some better quality uploads out there than I thought.

Using Sonarr you can specify minimum bitrates to download. It fetches content automatically in the background for you.

You can specify, but you can't guarantee that what you want is out there at that bitrate.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#623

Post by terramex »

pawelk wrote: post #617
abjKT26nO8 wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're describing an issue specific to US ISPs. It doesn't apply to Europe. From what I read even before the pandemic the US ISPs offered rather crappy services. In Europe, particularly in Poland, I don't have and haven't heard about anyone having any issues with connectivity right now, even though the country is in lockdown, schools and universities are closed, restaurants work only in delivery/take-out mode, compan…

I'm in Poland as well and I've been working remotely for over three years. Since the lock down started I feel that everything is a bit slower and less stable, but I haven't experienced major issues during usual work hours doing work-related things (maybe except MS Teams acting up). However Netflix is broken most of the time during afternoon hours (when I want to keep kids occupied with cartoons for an hour or so to g…

In contrast, my internet connection finally started working great since lockdowns started. I suspect my ISP (small local company in central Poland) got some additional bandwidth or somehow finally fixed their infrastructure when they saw increased internet usage among their clients.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#624

Post by lkramer »

rjyoungling wrote: post #620

There seems to be a big divide between two groups: One is of the mind that we should be empathetic and since it's not a lot of money, people shouldn't complain. The other is of the mind that, Netflix can certainly take those actions but shouldn't pass those costs on to the consumer. I'm in the second camp. In Holland, all the big gym companies still charge their memberships even though the gyms are closed. Since they…

The divide I have seen was between people who didn't mind as long as they got a reduced rate and people who, at least on the surface, seems to complain that they get lower quality than they are used to and this could easily be solved by ISPs just giving everyone more bandwidth.

Your post makes me think that maybe 99% are actually in the Just Lower The Charge And It's Fine camp, and everything else is either a vocal minority, or due to miscommunication and a desire to be outraged.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#625

Post by nicoburns »

abjKT26nO8 wrote: post #606
rococode wrote: post #246

I've been having major internet issues lately (Seattle area), have had 4 techs come try to figure it out. Yesterday's tech finally correctly diagnosed the problem as happening before the connection reaches our home but was unsure of the cause. He called his supervisor to investigate, and they found that the capacity for our neighborhood's node was nearly at 100%, while ideally it should always be under 80%. Fortunate…

You're describing an issue specific to US ISPs. It doesn't apply to Europe. From what I read even before the pandemic the US ISPs offered rather crappy services. In Europe, particularly in Poland, I don't have and haven't heard about anyone having any issues with connectivity right now, even though the country is in lockdown, schools and universities are closed, restaurants work only in delivery/take-out mode, compan…

Having issues with the internet here in the UK today. Unsurprising given that half of the world has suddenly discovered video calling. Mobile network seems more stable.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#626

Post by wongarsu »

VadimPR wrote: post #619
csunbird wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I am telling here is, if you are unable to meet the criteria that you are getting paid for, then you need to refund the difference. They are not doing that. It is not about being selfish here, think more about it.

It's quite sad to see such an attitude in these difficult times.

It's not like Netflix is struggling though this pandemic. Their subscriber numbers are probably skyrocketing right now.

Saying "Internet infrastructure can't handle the current load, we have to restrict service" is fine, but you would expect them to do right by the customer. Not announce the cuts via national news outlets, see how much backlash they get and then decide if they should make concessions to their paying customers.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#627

Post by ornornor »

mgoetzke wrote: post #595
john_alan wrote: post #586

This drives me fucking mental. It's not about being insensitive about the quality reduction, I KNOW PEOPLE ARE DYING, I KNOW that's more important than Netflix. I don't care if they stop ALL services, but DONT FUCKING CHARGE ME THEN.

Well if 'doing your part' only means 720p instead of 1080 or 4k at the same price for a little while, I think that is more than acceptable

I don’t understand that. It’s not like Netflix is saving lives or is a non profit. Why should it be our responsibility to subsidize their baseline? The nature of business is that you’re taking risks. Offloading that risk to your customers is bad taste. Netflix doesn’t share its profits with its customers so why should we be shouldering their losses/subsidizing them as paying customers?

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#628

Post by mcv »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #530
wwweston wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, for a while I thought “the doors aren’t automatic at the REI” might be the ultimate first world problem, but now I think “I have to suffer through my pandemic passtime shows in standard definition ? where are my LAWYERS?” might be in first place.

Remember what the opposite side of the coin is. This isn't a consequence of the virus. This is offsetting the other first world problem of slightly slow internet. There's no greater cause being served here.

There are a lot of vital services using the internet. If internet grinds to a halt because everybody has to stay home watching Netflix, and vital services have their internet access reduced, then scaling down Netflix bandwidth makes sense.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#629

Post by nvarsj »

1_player wrote: post #387
rococode wrote: post #246

I've been having major internet issues lately (Seattle area), have had 4 techs come try to figure it out. Yesterday's tech finally correctly diagnosed the problem as happening before the connection reaches our home but was unsure of the cause. He called his supervisor to investigate, and they found that the capacity for our neighborhood's node was nearly at 100%, while ideally it should always be under 80%. Fortunate…

A free alternative to PingPlotter: https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality My connection: https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/... In case anyone is shopping for broadband in the UK, I only have great things to say about Zen pictured above. It's so good I just called to upgrade my 80 Mb to a 300 Mb just for fun, meanwhile my quarantined Italian friends are suffering awful in…

I’m being pedantic, but that’s not really Zen, it’s the BT Openreach backend which has really great stability and latencies. I tracked my BT Openreach connection for many years and I never got more than a few ms of jitter, really amazing. However the speeds are not great (70/20), and the coverage is also fairly poor - I'm in a dead zone right now between two local exchanges. So unfortunately I'm forced to use Virgin, which has gotta be the worst ISP in the history of the world (and I have had Comcast!). Terrible network and terrible customer service - I don't know how this company exists.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#630

Post by sebdd »

rjyoungling wrote: post #620

There seems to be a big divide between two groups: One is of the mind that we should be empathetic and since it's not a lot of money, people shouldn't complain. The other is of the mind that, Netflix can certainly take those actions but shouldn't pass those costs on to the consumer. I'm in the second camp. In Holland, all the big gym companies still charge their memberships even though the gyms are closed. Since they…

Hard to draw a line, but there's a key difference between Netflix & gym memberships/restaurants/… for me:

Gyms are forced to close, and are losing money in the process. As a consumer, I can sympathize with the situation. Netflix is having issues because they are thriving, not because they're having a hard time.

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