The surge in OTT viewership amidst the Coronavirus lockdown has been much cause for concern among telecom officials, due to the exponential rise in online traffic. There was always a chance of the internet network collapsing under the burden. While not so much for major players, smaller regional OTT players Hoichoi TV and Aha Video have caved in to the excessive online traffic on their platforms. Both OTT platforms have suffered technical outages last night, which carried over to this morning too.
The Coronavirus outbreak has forced millions of Indians to remain locked up at home amidst the unprecedented lockdown declared by the government. In such a state, OTT entertainment is their only saviour and source of joy amidst being cooped up indoors. It is quite obvious that such an intensive rise in online viewership would lead to issues with the network.
Telecom officials, abroad and in India, had requested streaming platforms to lower their streaming resolutions as well as bitrates, to reduce excessive load on the Internet. All major streaming platforms had done the needful in response to the request. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Facebook, Disney Plus, ZEE5, Alt Balaji, Hotstar, etc. had lowered resolutions to standard on their respective platforms. Hoichoi and Aha Video had done the same.
Despite these measures, it is unfortunate that Hoichoi TV and Aha Video suffered technical outages in their transmission, an unpleasant consequence of the surge in OTT viewership.
We sincerely hope that the two platforms resolve the technical issues and get back on their feet as quickly as possible.
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