Thierry Breton, the European Union’s commissioner for internal market and services, has a suggestion for reducing that strain. He tweeted Wednesday that he had a conversation with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings about setting all content on the platform to only stream in standard definition.
The default for Netflix’s streaming quality is high-definition, which uses more bandwidth than standard definition. Users can change their settings from high-definition (HD) to standard definition, which Breton is encouraging them to do, but he wants to make it easier by getting Netflix and other streaming platforms to make this a universal setting whenever HD isn’t necessary.
Important phone conversation with @ReedHastings, CEO of @Netflix To beat #COVID19, we #StayAtHome Teleworking & streaming help a lot but infrastructures might be in strain. To secure Internet access for all, let’s #SwitchToStandard definition when HD is not necessary. — Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) March 18, 2020