Software

Tech Tip – Setting A Background in Microsoft Teams

Posted on by Andy Miller

If you are using Microsoft’s Teams during the lockdown and would like to set up a more professional-looking or even a fun or custom background during your video calls, here’s how:

You can choose to use one of the backgrounds that are built-in to teams or, you can set up your own custom background (putting your image in the uploads folder) in the following way:

– Open File Explorer.

– Select Click This PC >> Windows (C:).

– Open the Users folder, select your user profile and click the View tab (top of File Explorer).

– Check the Hidden items checkbox and open the AppData folder (which should have appeared when you checked the hidden items box).

– Open the Roaming folder, open the Microsoft folder, and open the Teams folder within the Microsoft folder.

– Then, open the Backgrounds folder, open the Uploads folder, and place your chosen image in the uploads folder.

– Finally, right-click on the Uploads folder and select Pin to Quick access. You can also pin the Uploads folder to Quick Access to speed things up if you want to add more images.

To set your chosen (from the built-in images) or custom image as a background:

– Within a video call, select the More actions button (the three dots).

– Select Show background effects, scroll down and select your uploaded image.

– Select Preview and then select Apply (or Apply and turn on video).

Make Your Own Adverts With YouTube’s Free Video Builder Tool

Posted on by Andy Miller

YouTube has launched YouTube Video Builder, a free tool that enables businesses to easily make short video adverts.

Easy To Use

The new free (beta) Video Builder tool enables users to create video animations from static elements such as images, text and logos, and to enhance those videos with music from YouTube’s (Google’s) library. Users can choose from a variety of layouts, depending on the message and goals, and can customise colours and fonts to quickly generate a short YouTube video of 6 seconds or 15 seconds duration.

Why?

YouTube says that the new tool will be of particular value because businesses of all sizes have limited time and resources and that in-person video shoots “are no longer practical in many countries”.  The YouTube Video Builder may also be of use to brands or agencies who may want to experiment and create supplemental, lightweight videos, and to smaller businesses and businesses with less creative experience, who need an efficient, low-resource way to create videos.

YouTube suggests that the completed videos can be used for advertising campaigns, on websites or in emails.

How It Works & How To Sign Up

You can see how Video Builder works by watching this video or by reading this guide.  YouTube says that you can sign up for access to Video Builder here, but you may have to wait for your application to be processed and to be granted access.

Banning Conspiracy Videos

This is the second positive news announcement in a week from YouTube (Google) after it announced that it is banning all conspiracy videos that promote the idea of a link between 5G and the emergence of the COVID-19 virus.

Good News From Microsoft Too

Microsoft is also promoting some of its own good news this week as it has announced help for UK school students who are working at home in the form of helping the UK’s 27,000 schools run lessons remotely using Microsoft Teams, Office 365, and other software like Minecraft: Education Edition, Flip grid, Skype in the Classroom and InTune.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Even though it’s still in the beta stage, a free, easy-to-use video ad-making tool could be a useful, value-adding addition to the promotional tools used by mainly smaller businesses.  Many of these businesses are likely to be under considerable strain with the COVID-19 lockdown and its effects, and there may be many ways in which short, professional-looking video announcements and adverts could come in useful to those businesses in the coming months.  For YouTube (Google), this is another way that they can remind users of the value of its suite of business services at a time when businesses may be spending a lot of time on other competing platforms.

Featured Article – Coronavirus Tracking

Posted on by Andy Miller

Following recent Wall Street Journal reports that phone data from tech companies and data providers is being used to track the movements of Americans in order to better understand the spread of COVID-19, here’s a look at how data and apps are being used worldwide in the common fight against the virus.

Americans Tracked By Phone Location Data

As has recently been reported in the Wall Street Journal, phone data from tech companies and data providers is being used to track the movements of Americans in order to better understand the spread of COVID-19.

The phone data, which is reported not to have any personally identifiable elements, thereby retaining privacy, has been analysed (according to the WSJ) and compiled into reports which have been sent to the ‘Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’ as well as other offices.  The data will also be added to a portal for official use.

500 Cities

The reported goal of making a portal available to officials which contains the analysed phone data from 500 U.S. cities is to be able to help improve America’s response to the unfolding COVID-19 crisis.

Privacy Concerns

Although it could be argued that these are unusual times when all manner of methods of tracking and controlling the virus are likely to be considered, the fact that phone data is being used this way has led to concern among privacy groups and activists.

Not Using Phone Data

However, a spokesperson for ‘Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’ is reported to have said that phone data is not being used but public health surveillance data from sources such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) is being used to help track the spread of COVID-19.

Letter

Back on March 19, Senator Edward J. Markey wrote to Michael Kratsios, the Chief Technology Officer of the United States, asking him to “balance privacy with any data-driven solutions to the current public health crisis”.  Also, in the letter, Sen. Markey pointed out that “a person’s location information can reveal other sensitive details, such as a place of employment, religious affiliation, or political preferences” and, therefore, Sen. Markey asked for assurances that collection and processing of phone location information, even if aggregated and anonymised, would not pose safety and privacy risks to individuals.

Location Tracking in Other Countries

In his letter, Sen. Markey also noted how America should be guided by the experience of other countries that have turned to technology to combat COVID-19 and that,  the use of location data without careful limitations could harm the privacy and civil liberties of Americans.

Singapore

The countries and methods highlighted by Sen. Markey included Singapore, where he alleges that the government publishes personal details of coronavirus, such as their age, nationalities, length of stay in hospital, where they live, and even their connections to one another.

It is likely that he may have been referring to several technological measures being used in Singapore,  such as the TraceTogether app.  The app uses location data and Bluetooth to help stop the spread of COVID-19.  Once on a user’s phone, the app records when that user goes near another person who has the TraceTogether app.  This proximity data is stored on the user’s phone and can be requested for analysis with the user’s permission – which many are willing to give to help stop the spread of the disease.  The TraceTogether app is also used by the Singapore government to send out updates to citizens via WhatsApp twice a day containing information such as the number of cases, suspected locations of outbreaks, and advice for avoiding infection.

South Korea

Another Country referred to by Sen. Markey was South Korea where he suggested that data shared about patients who were being admitted to hospital led to them being stigmatised.

This may have been a reference to the “self-quarantine safety protection” app from the country’s ‘Ministry of the Interior and Safety’ via which the central and local governments send out real-time alerts via text message, apps and online giving details of the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) and of the travel histories of those infected.

Another app in popular use in South Korea is the “Corona 100m app” which has been downloaded more than 1 million times and alerts users if they breach a 100-metre (328 ft) radius of the latest tracked whereabouts of a coronavirus patient.

South Korea is also reported to be deploying a system that uses data including surveillance camera footage and even the credit card transactions of confirmed coronavirus patients to recreate their movements.

The UK

Following the example of other countries, such as South Korea, using technology to significantly ‘flatten the curve’ of COVID-19, the UK government is reported to be about to launch its own app to warn users if they are in close proximity to anyone who has tested positive for coronavirus. The app will use short-range Bluetooth to detect phones in the vicinity and store a record of those contacts and, if a person tests positive for COVID-19, they can upload the contacts and alert them via the app.  The idea behind it appears to be that, if people test positive for coronavirus, those people that they may have been in contact with can be quickly informed and can self-isolate.

It has also been reported that the data from the app won’t be shared with central authorities, thereby helping to reduce fears of possible privacy breaches.

Large Numbers Needed

For the UK app to be effective, however, it is (somewhat optimistically) thought that more than 50% of the population would need to download it.

Ethics Board To Be Appointed

Considering that the app will be collecting such sensitive information, and assuming that it does achieve a very large number of downloads, it appears likely that UK’s National Health Service ‘NHSX’ (a new unit driving forward the digital transformation of health and social care) will need to appoint its own ethics board to oversee the app’s development.

Social Media and Tech Giants

As well as whole countries and governments looking at ways to collect and use location data to help fight the spread of COVID-19, tech giants like Facebook and Google are also offering to use their collected data to help.

Facebook

Facebook is reported to be using its unique perspective as a company with access to data from 2.5 billion monthly active users to:

– Provide (anonymised) location information to feed into analysis and forecasts that could help tackle the spread of the virus.

– Produce three disease prevention maps on population movement, as part of its, ‘Data for Good’ program, to help inform disease forecasting efforts and protective measures.

– Send out a prompt on Facebook aimed at encouraging people in the U.S. to sign-up to a voluntary survey from Carnegie Mellon University Delphi Research Center that’s been designed to help health researchers identify COVID-19 hotspots.

Google

Google is also releasing ‘COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports’ to health officials, based on its own collected, anonymised data from phones, to show movement trends and insights and thereby help to tackle the spread of COVID-19.

Looking Ahead

Most people would probably agree that using what data is available, if it really is in an anonymised form that will not impact on privacy, and if it is used just to help tackle the spread of the virus is a reasonable idea.  It is a good thing that some countries appear to have been able to use apps to help gather data and inform people in a way that may save lives, and it appears that the UK will also be using the power of technology (an app) to help in the fight.

The challenge is to be able to use data from consenting people i.e. people who have downloaded the apps and agreed to have their location data used, in an ethical way, in a way that protects privacy,  and in a way that doesn’t lead to stigmatising or prejudice or is carried on for other purposes beyond tackling this particular outbreak.

Data Reveals Business Worries About Remote Working Challenges

Posted on by Andy Miller

London-based security company Redscan has reported that recent Google searches reveal how businesses are focused on how they can adapt to the security and technology challenges posed by remote working.

Not Prepared

This does appear to show, perhaps not surprisingly, given the speed at which the spread of the COVID-19 virus led to the temporary closure of business premises and a lockdown, that businesses were not fully prepared to manage business continuity and the challenges created by this rather unexpected threat.

COVID-19 Phishing Scams

Redscan reported that, for the first time in many years, ‘COVID-19’ and not ‘Apple’ has become the most searched-for term in relation to phishing campaigns.

Business Continuity

Redscan has also reported that searches for “business continuity plan” reached an all-time high in Google from 8 March to 21 March.  Other searched for terms that hit record-levels included “remote working”, “remote access” and “VPN”.

Redscan’s CTO, Mark Nicholls, says on the company’s website that the popularity of “business continuity” as a search term “suggests that many businesses did not already have a continuity plan in place, and now is hardly an ideal time to implement one”.

Mr Nicolls also highlights how the pandemic has provided cybercriminals with “a unique opportunity to target remote employees” and suggests that “employee cyber awareness training and proactive network and endpoint monitoring are more important than ever”.

Collaborative Working Tools

Search terms relating to popular collaborative working tools such as ‘Zoom’ (the most searched for), GoToMeeting, WebEx, Slack and Microsoft Teams have also seen huge search volumes in Google in recent weeks.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The volume of searches for ‘business continuity plan’ suggests that many businesses don’t have one and have been forced into very quickly searching for information about keeping their business going in during the most challenging conditions since WW2.

Last week, research by Check Point indicated that cybercriminals may be targeting the video conferencing app ‘Zoom’ while in recent weeks there have been reports of several different phishing scams going around.  These include emails purporting to be from doctors offering details of a vaccine cure that’s been kept secret by the Chinese and UK governments, emails with fake links to disease management policies, fake promises of tax refunds for coronavirus, and fake emails asking for donations to fund the fast development of a COVID-19 vaccine. It appears, therefore, to be a sound observation from Redscan that employee cyber awareness training and network and endpoint monitoring are more important than ever, and businesses need to be extra vigilant as cybercriminals are seeking to exploit this extraordinary situation to steal data, money, and/or install malicious software on business networks.

Tech Tip – How To Sign A Digital Document (Mac)

Posted on by Andy Miller

If you have a Mac, there’s a fast and easy way to sign a digital document without the need to print it out first.  Here’s how:

– Save the document as a .pdf file.

– Open it with the ‘Preview’ app.

– Select the ‘Show Mark-up Toolbar’ option.

– Select ‘Sign’ and use the mouse (or trackpad) to draw your signature and save it.

– You will now be able to insert your signature into any digital document (and edit the size).

Research Indicates Zoom Is Being Targeted By Cybercriminals

Posted on by Andy Miller

With many people working from home due to coronavirus, research by Check Point indicates that cyber-criminals may be targeting the video conferencing app ‘Zoom’.

Domains

Cybersecurity company ‘Check Point’ reports witnessing a major increase in new domain registrations in the last few weeks where the domain name includes the word ‘Zoom’.  According to a recent report on Check Point’s blog, more than 1700 new domains have been registered since the beginning of the year with 25 per cent of them being registered over the past week. Check Point’s research indicates that 4 per cent of these recently registered domains have “suspicious characteristics”, such as the word ‘Zoom’.

Concern In The U.S.

The huge rise in Zoom’s user numbers, particularly in the U.S. has also led New York’s Attorney General, Letitia James, to ask Zoom whether it has reviewed its security measures recently, and to suggest to Zoom that it may have been relatively slow at addressing issues in the past.

Not Just Zoom

Check Point has warned that Zoom is not the only app that’s being targeted at the moment as new phishing websites have been launched to pass themselves off as every leading communications application.  For example, the official classroom.google.com website has been impersonated by googloclassroom.com and googieclassroom.com.

Malicious Files Too

Check Point also reports detecting malicious files with names related to the popular apps and platforms being used by remote workers during the coronavirus lockdown.  For example, malicious file names observed include zoom-us-zoom_##########.exe” and “microsoft-teams_V#mu#D_##########.exe” (# is used here to represent digits). Once these files are run, InstallCore PUA is loaded onto the victim’s computer.  InstallCore PUA is a program that can be used by cyber-criminals to install other malicious programs on a victim’s computer.

Suggestions

Some ways that users can protect their computers/devices, networks and businesses from these types of threats, as suggested by Check Point, include being extra cautious with emails and files from unfamiliar senders, not opening attachments or clicking on links in emails (phishing scams), and by paying close attention to the spelling of domains, email addresses and spelling errors in emails/on websites.  Check Point also suggests Googling the company you’re looking for to find their official website rather than just clicking on a link in an email, which could redirect to a fake (phishing) site.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This research highlights how cyber-criminals are always quick to capitalise on situations where people have been adversely affected by unusual events and where they know people are in unfamiliar territory.  In this case, people are also divided geographically and are trying to cope with many situations at the same time, may be a little distracted, and may be less vigilant than normal.

The message to businesses is that the evidence from security companies that are tracking the behaviour of cyber-criminals is that extra vigilance is now needed and that all employees need to be very careful, particularly in how they deal with emails from unknown sources, or from apparently known sources offering convincing reasons and incentives to click on links or download files.

Google Warns Against Disabling Websites During Lockdown

Posted on by Andy Miller

Google has warned businesses that are tempted to disable or temporarily close their online business website during the coronavirus outbreak not to do so, as this could have a lasting, detrimental effect on its (SEO) search engine rankings.

Why Disable or Close Down The Website?

The coronavirus outbreak has meant reduced orders for many businesses but has also left many businesses unable to fulfil orders, or in a position where many products are out of stock.  Where the website for these businesses is the online shop, this has led to some business owners deciding to disable or close the website temporarily.

Bad Idea

Although this may sound like a reasonable idea from a practical business perspective, Google has warned that doing so could adversely affect the website’s search engine position in a significant way, even after it has been restored.  Google has advised that an “extreme” measure like removing a site completely from its Google’s index is “a significant change that can take quite some time to recover from”.

Google has also said that there is no fixed time for a recovery from a complete website removal and that it has no mechanism to speed a recovery of a website in its search engine rankings after that site has been taken down and then put back up.

Lose Access To Information

Taking your website down temporarily will also mean that Google’s Search Console verification will fail, you will no longer have access to information about your business in Search, and you will lose potentially valuable data from the Aggregate reports in Search Console (as pages are dropped from Google’s index).

Other Reasons

In addition to damaging the position of a website in Google’s search engine rankings, Google suggests that other reasons why temporarily taking down a website would be a bad idea for a business include:

– Confusing customers.  Customers won’t know what’s happening and may even assume that that business has closed. Also, if Customers/potential customers can’t find first-hand details about you and your products/services and are forced to look for third-party information about your business, this may not be as correct or comprehensive.

– Making it more difficult to gain ground in future.  Restoring a website after a break means having to wait for re-indexing.

Better To Limit Your Website’s Functionality

Google advises that it is better, and less risky (in terms of losing rankings) to simply limit the functionality of your website rather than totally disabling the website without following Google’s best practice advice.  Limiting functionality while retaining search visibility can include disabling the cart functionality, displaying a banner or pop-up to explain the situation to customers, updating structured data and local business structured data, checking the Merchant Centre feed, and telling Google about the updates.  This could mean using the Search Console to ask Google to re-crawl a limited number of pages or using sitemaps to ask Google to re-crawl a larger number of pages e.g. product pages.

Other Advice

Google has issued advice about the proper procedure for situations where businesses feel that they need to disable their website for e.g. a couple of days. See: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/pause-online-business#best-practices-disabling-site .

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Clearly, disabling functionality while retaining the kind of search engine visibility that it has taken a lot of time (and money) to build up, and is vital to the life of the business is preferable, in most cases, to completely disabling a website without following best practice advice.

If you feel that you must take a site down for a short period, it is certainly worth following Google’s best practice advice when doing so (see the ‘Other Advice’ paragraph above for the link).

Featured Article – Microsoft Teams User Numbers Up By 12 Million In A Week

Posted on by Andy Miller

Microsoft’s collaborative working platform ‘Teams’ is reported to have seen a massive 12 million user boost in one week as a result of remote-working through the coronavirus outbreak, and through Microsoft making the platform generally available through Office 365 from March 14.

What Is Teams?

Teams, announced in November 2016 and launched by Microsoft in 2017, is a platform designed to help collaborative working and combines features such as workplace chat, meetings, notes, and attachments. Described by Microsoft as a “complete chat and online meetings solution”, it normally integrates with the company’s Office 365 subscription office productivity suite. In July 2018, Microsoft introduced a free, basic features version of Teams which did not require an Office 365 account, in order to increase user numbers and tempt users away from competitor ‘Slack’.

Microsoft Teams is also the replacement for Skype for Business Online, the support for which will end on 31 July 2021, and all-new Microsoft 365 customers have been getting Microsoft Teams by default from 1 September 2019.

March 14

Microsoft Corp. announced on March 14 that Microsoft Teams would be generally available in Office 365 for business customers in 181 markets and 19 languages.

Increased To 44 Million Users

The move to make Teams generally available to businesses with Office 365, coupled with a mass move to remote working as a result of COVID-19 has resulted in 12 million new users joining the platform in a week, bringing users up from 32 million on 11 March to 44 million users a week later.  The number is likely to have increased significantly again since 18 March.

What Does Teams Offer?

Microsoft Teams offers threaded chat capabilities which Microsoft describes as “a modern conversations experience”, and built-in Office 365 apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, SharePoint and Power BI.  Also, Teams offers users ad-hoc (and scheduled) voice and video meetings and has security and compliance capabilities built-in as it supports global standards, including SOC 1, SOC 2, EU Model Clauses, ISO27001 and HIPAA. Users are also able to benefit from the fact that workspaces can be customised for each team using tabs, connectors and bots from third-party partners and Microsoft tools e.g. Microsoft Planner and Visual Studio Team Services. Microsoft says that more than 150 integrations are available or coming soon to Teams.

New Features

Microsoft reports that it has added more than 100 new features to Teams since November 2019.  These include an enhanced meeting experience (with scheduling), mobile audio calling, video calling on Android (coming soon to iOS), and email integration.  Teams has also benefited from improvements to accessibility with support for screen readers, high contrast and keyboard-only navigation.

Walkie-Talkie Phone

In January, Microsoft announced that it was adding a “push-to-talk experience” to Teams that turns employee or company-owned smartphones and tablets into walkie-talkies.  The Walkie Talkie feature, which can be accessed in private preview in the first half of this year and will be available in the Teams mobile app, offers clear, instant and secure voice communication over the cloud.

Competition

There are, of course, other services in competition with Microsoft Teams. Slack, for example, is a cloud-based set of proprietary team collaboration tools and services.  Slack enables users (communities, groups, or teams) to join through a URL or invitation sent by a team admin or owner.  Although Slack was intended to be an organisational communication tool, it has morphed into a community platform i.e. it is a business technology that has crossed over into personal use.

That said, Slack reported in October last year that it had 12 million daily active users, which was a 2 million increase since January 2019.

Slack has stickiness and strong user engagement which help to attract businesses that want to get into using workstream collaboration software but, it faces challenges such as convincing big businesses that it is not just a chat app and that it is a worthy, paid-for alternative to its more well-known competitors like Microsoft’s Teams.

Like Teams, Slack has just introduced new features and has experienced a surge of growth in just over a month.

Another competitor to Microsoft’s Teams is Zoom, which is a platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars that is often used alongside Google’s G Suite and Slack.  It has been reported that Zoom is now top of the free downloaded apps in Apple’s app store, and Learnbonds.com reports that downloads for Zoom increased by 1,270 per cent between February 22 and March 22.

Real-Life Example – Teams

A real-life example from Microsoft of how Teams is being put to good use is by bicycle and cycling gear company Trek Bicycle.  Microsoft reports how Teams has become the project hub for the company where all staff know where to find the latest documents, notes, tasks relating to team conversations thereby making Teams a central part of the company’s “get-things-done-fast culture.”

Looking Forward

Many businesses are already using and gaining advantages from the speed and scope of communication, project context, and convenience of a cloud-based, accessible hub offered by collaborative working platforms like Teams.  The decision to make Teams generally available with Office 365 for business can only make the platform more popular and the need for companies to quickly set-up effective remote working has stimulated the market for these services and given users a crash-course in and a strong reminder of their strengths and benefits.

The hope by Microsoft and other collaborative working platform providers is that companies will go on using the platforms long after they technically need to in order to deal with COVID19 lockdown and that they will decide to use them going forward to keep improving the flexibility and productivity of their businesses, compete with other companies that are getting the best from them, and guard against excessive damage to the business from any future lockdown situations.

Viruses Killed By Robots

Posted on by Andy Miller

Robots armed with UV-C ultraviolet light beams that can effectively disinfect surfaces in a hospital room in 10-20 minutes are helping in the fight against COVID-19.

UVD Robots, Denmark

The robots, which are reported to have been shipped in considerable numbers to Wuhan in China, Asia, and parts of Europe are manufactured in Denmark’s third-largest city, Odense, by the UVD Robots company.  The manufacturers say that if used as part of a regular cleaning cycle, they could prevent and reduce the spread of infectious diseases, viruses, bacteria, as well as other types of harmful organic microorganisms.

Breaks Down DNA

These smart robots, which look a little like a printer on wheels with several light-sabres arranged vertically in a circle on top, can autonomously clean traces of viruses from a room by ‘burning’ them from surfaces using UV-Wavelength: 254NM (UV-C light) in a way that breaks down the DNA-structure of the virus.

Research and Testing

The UVD robots are the product of 6 years research, design, development, and testing by leading, reputable organisation Blue Ocean Robotics, and the Danish Healthcare Authority (supported by leading microbiologists and hygiene specialists from Odense University Hospital).

How?

The Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) method of disinfection, which has been in accepted use since the mid-20th century, involves using short-wavelength ultraviolet (UV-C) to disrupt the DNA of microorganisms so that they can no longer carry out cellular functions.

Features

The features of UVD’s cleaning robots include 360-degree disinfection coverage, a 3-hour battery charge, and software and sensor-based safety features.  The operating time per charge for the UV module is 2-2.5 hours (equal to 9-10 rooms).  It is claimed that these units can kill up to 99.99 per cent of bacteria.

HAIs

The primary purpose of the robots is to help and improve quality of care for hospitals and healthcare facilities around the world by providing an effective, low human risk, 24-hour available way to eradicate the kind of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) which affect millions of patients (and kill several thousand) each year.

The COVID-19 outbreak which has led to many healthcare environments being overwhelmed with large numbers of patients has, therefore, made the need for this kind of cleaning/disinfecting system seem very attractive.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Now, more than ever in living memory, having a device that can simply, automatically, quickly and effectively get on with the cleaning of hospital rooms on-demand, without worrying about infection (as may be the case for human cleaners), and without putting more human resource demands on hospitals must be invaluable, and would account for the increase in orders internationally. Devices like these show how a combination of technologies can be combined to create real value and tackle a problem in an effective way that could benefit all of us.

Facebook Video Quality Reduced To Cope With Demand

Posted on by Andy Miller

Facebook and Instagram have reduced the quality of videos shared on their platforms in Europe as demand for streaming has increased due to self-isolation.

Lower Bitrate, Looks Similar

The announcement by Facebook that a lowering of the bit-rates for videos on Facebook and Instagram in Europe highlights the need to reduce network congestion, free-up more bandwidth, and make sure that users stay connected at a time where demand is reaching very high levels because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The move could have a significant positive impact when you consider that Facebook has around 300 million daily users in Europe alone, and streaming video can account for as much as 60% of traffic on fixed and mobile networks.

Although a reduction in bit-rates for videos will, technically, reduce the quality, the likelihood is that the change will be virtually imperceptible to most users.

Many Other Platforms

Facebook is certainly not the only platform taking this step as Amazon, Apple TV+, Disney+ and Netflix have also made similar announcements.  For example, Netflix is reducing its back video bit rates while still claiming to allow customers to get HD and Ultra HD content (with lower image quality),  and Amazon Prime Video has started to reduce its streaming bitrates as has Apple’s streaming service.

Google’s YouTube is also switching all traffic in the EU to standard definition by default.

BT Say UK Networks Have The Capacity

BT’s Chief Technology and Information Officer, Howard Watson, has announced that the UK’s advanced digital economy means that it has overbuilt its networks to compensate for HD streaming content and that the UK’s fixed broadband network core has been built with the extra ‘headroom’ to support evening peaks of network traffic that high-bandwidth applications create. Mr Watson has also pointed out that since people started to work from home more this month, there has been a weekday daytime traffic increase of 35-60 per cent compared with similar days on the fixed network, peaking at 7.5Tb/s, which is still only half the average evening peak, and far short of the 17.5 Tb/s that the network is known to be able to handle.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For Amazon, Apple TV, Netflix, Facebook and others platforms, they are clearly facing a challenge to their service delivery in Europe but have been quick to take a step that will at least mean that there’s enough bandwidth for their services to be delivered with the trade-off being a fall in the level of viewing quality for customers.  Many customers, however, are likely not to be too critical about the move, given the many other big changes that have been made to their lives as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and the attempts to reduce its impact.  Netflix has even pointed out the extra benefit that its European viewers are likely to use 25 per cent less data when watching films as a result of the bit rate changes. However, with online streaming services being one of the main pleasures that many people feel they have left to enjoy safely, the change in bit rate should be OK as long as the picture quality isn’t drastically reduced to the point of annoyance and distraction.