In mid-March, virtually all of Europe was paralyzed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The European Union urged the main streaming video services to reduce bandwidth so that the users who had to work from home, they could do it without problems.
Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV + and YouTube followed the recommendations of the European Union and reduced bandwidth in virtually all European countries, a restriction that ultimately did not reach the United States. Now that the worst of the pandemic is over, and we find ourselves trying to get back to normal, Netflix has begun to remove those restrictions.
According to various media in Germany and other neighboring countries, Netflix has begun to restore original bitrate that it offered before the cut, motivated not to saturate internet connections and consume less bandwidth, so that people who had the opportunity to work from home could do so without connection problems.
Netflix itself has officially confirmed to the German radio station Heise that little by little is lifting the restriction process which he established in mid-February, a process that is gradually spreading to all European countries, a process that can take several days in the best of cases.
Netflix's 4K content requires a bit rate close to 15 Mbps, a rate that halved in mid-March. This reduction helped maintain the original resolution that the user was paying for but consuming half the bandwidth.
Netflix's growth during the pandemic
Netflix's growth forecasts for the first quarter of 2020 were 7 million new users, figures that doubled to 16 million due to the obligation to stay in our homes. With this growth, the number of worldwide Netflix subscribers stands at 182 million.
