[vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph text=”Approximately one billion of people are staying home because of the coronavirus pandemic, some of them working remotely, others just watching TV shows all day long. As the consequence, the telecommunication industry is extremely overstretched.“][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_heading title=”The coronavirus crisis harms the European media industry” size=”medium”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph text=”Over the last days, the pandemic’s epicentre has moved from China to Europe. Italy is suffering heavy losses with the largest number of victims, Spain and France also facing rapid spread of the disease.”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph text=”Governments had to close borders, suspend enterprises and declare a curfew and a number of restrictions for citizens in order to slow down the pandemic expansion.”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph text=”The primary measure for citizens is to stay home and avoid getting outside without serious matter. Therefore, no surprise that Internet usage in Europe has risen sharply: employees have to do their job remotely, students have online lessons, and huge part of users stream videos. This made European telecom giants such as Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom sound the alarm, and the EU reaction was not long.”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph text=”A EU internal markets commissioner Thierry Breton announced on Twitter that he had a discussion with the Netflix chairman Reed Hastings, and he asked him to lower the European video broadcasting’s quality. In comparison, 1 hour of HD-quality Netflix video takes 3 GB of data while 1 hour of SD-quality video – only 1 GB, so this would help to reduce major part of the utilized bandwidth.”][vc_heading title=”React stream video giant” size=”medium”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”493″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph text=”According to recent estimates, stream video service is about 60% of the world’s internet traffic, with Netflix being responsible for 12% of the total online throughput capacity. The company was the first to announce measures that would help to improve the situation in Europe. “][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph text=”“Given the major difficulties that arise because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have decided to lower the data transfer rate in all our European streams within 30 days”, – said Netflix representative, – “We estimate that it would reduce the traffic.”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph text=”in European networks by about 25%, and it would still guarantee high quality of service for our users”.”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph text=”It is reported that it was announced after the EU Commissioner Breton had a conversation with Pichai Sundararajan, CEO of Alphabet, and Susan Wojcicki, The YouTube CEO. “We have to switch all the traffic in EU to standard mode by default”, – stated the company.”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph text=”Amazon also took same measures regarding its Prime Video. “We support the need for prudent management of the communication services in order to cope with the increased demand for internet because of coronavirus. Prime Video deals with local authorities and internet providers to reduce overload of networks”, – said the Amazon representative. “][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph text=”Disney had to delay the launch of a new streaming service Disney Plus in France on request of French government while continuing the plan’s implementation on other European markets. It also announced it would reduce the total usage of bandwidth by 25%. This applies to all markets where Disney Plus would be launched on 24 March 2020. This would be done in response to the request of EU concerning “the maintaining of the smooth functioning of the broadband infrastructure”.”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_paragraph text=”According to European subscribers, Apple has also lowered the Apple TV Plus streaming quality in EU.”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
