Covid-19: Digital players shift to SD streaming on cellular networks as consumption surge

In the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a lockdown, which raises concerns about its impact on the cellular network infrastructure, key stakeholders of the digital industry have agreed to immediately adopt measures. This includes temporarily defaulting HD and ultra-HD streaming to SD content or offering only SD content, at bit-rates no higher than 480p on cellular networks.

These voluntary measures will be in effect until April 14.

This was decided at a virtual meeting organised on March 24 by Uday Shankar, Chairman, Star & Disney India, with NP Singh (Sony), Sanjay Gupta (Google), Ajit Mohan (Facebook), Sudhanshu Vats (Viacom18), Gaurav Gandhi (Amazon Prime Video), Punit Goenka (Zee), Nikhil Gandhi (Tiktok), Ambika Khurana (Netflix), Karan Bedi (MX Player) and Varun Narang (Hotstar), the industry said in a statement on Wednesday.