EU institutions liaise with IPSs and streaming services in an effort to reduce network congestion during the coronavirus pandemic.
Background: As European governments take emergency measures to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, citizens are increasingly working and studying from home to avoid unnecessary commuting and social gathering. This is increasing the pressure on telecoms networks, which have to cope with unusual levels of traffic. Given the situation, the European Commission and the Body of European Regulators (BEREC) have stepped up to make sure network congestion does not have a damaging impact on connectivity at the time when it is most needed.
BEREC sets up a reporting mechanism: On 19 March 2020, BEREC and the EC issued a joint statement in which they set out what operators should do in case of impending network congestion, and call on operators to closely cooperate with national regulators. BEREC notes that operators are authorised to apply exceptional traffic management measures to prevent or mitigate network congestion, providing that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally. BEREC emphasised that currently there are no major congestion problems, and network operators seem to be coping well with the higher traffic load in the networks. However, regulators need to stay vigilant and be ready should the situation change. To ensure regular monitoring of the situation, BEREC and the EC are setting up a reporting mechanism. BEREC expects this to be ready soon, since it is not a new structure, but rather strengthening existing ways to share information among regulators.
The EC seeks help from streaming services, and industry responds: On the same day, Commissioner Thierry Breton invited video streaming platforms to consider reducing the bitrate of their video streams, to help mitigate the demand for network capacity. Both Netflix and YouTube have responded to the request. The former will reduce bitrate for 30 days, in a move estimated to reduce data consumption by 25%. Soon after, Google announced that YouTube videos will be set to standard definition for the same period of time.
