Audio Video News

Is your Netflix consumption pushing your mobile data consumption past the cap? The company has a new tool to help subscribers dodge overage charges.

The tool has six settings. The auto setting allows 3 hours per gigabyte, a compromise between usage time and video quality. The other settings are off, low (4 hours per GB), medium (2 hours per GB), high (1 hour per GB), and unlimited (for those with unlimited data plans). The move came after Netflix attracted criticism for reducing quality on the AT&T and Verizon networks, but not on T-Mobile or Sprint due to their more “consumer friendly” data policies.

The tool is timely considering how a generational change is shifting video consumption from traditional broadcast, cable, and satellite TV to mobile video. Teens are watching 50 percent less traditional TV over the past four years but 85 percent more mobile video, according to the annual Ericsson Mobility Report. That has driven a 127 percent increase in smartphone video consumption in 2014–2015. Mobile video traffic is projected to grow another 55 percent by 2021. It will then comprise two-thirds of mobile data traffic, even depressing the growth of social networking, which is slated to drop from 15 percent of traffic in 2015 to 10 percent in 2021.