Netflix Canada Now Uses Two-Thirds Less Bandwidth

If you’re a Netflix user in Canada worried about usage-based billing (UBB) and exceeding your bandwidth, you can worry a little less now. Netflix just sent the following email out to its users, emphasizing shows in Canada will now use two-thirds less data without degrading the quality of your video:

Dear Gary,

Starting today, watching movies & TV shows in Canada will use 2/3 less data on average with minimal impact to video quality. For example, watching 30 hours of Netflix movies & TV shows will only use 9 GB of data, well below most Canadian ISP data caps. Previously, 30 hours from Netflix typically used 31 GB.

Why the change? We know that many of our Canadian members have monthly Internet data caps. This new default account setting will significantly reduce the amount of data Netflix delivers to you each month.

You now also have the ability to manage how much data Netflix delivers to you. Visit Your Account to adjust your settings anytime you want. Regardless of which setting you choose –– Netflix is still only $7.99 a month.

As always, we will continue to innovate and try new things to ensure Netflix is a great experience without high data use. If you have any questions, please call us at 1-866-923-1277.

–Your friends at Netflix

With all our bandwidth settings, Netflix streams a little bit of additional data as a buffer each time you start a movie or TV show. Frequently starting and stopping movies & TV shows will result in a minor increase to the amount of data Netflix streams to you per hour. In most cases this will be less than a few minutes worth.

This is a huge improvement compare to before. 30 hours of video will only use 9GB of data now, compared to 31GB. Kudos to the Netflix team for continuing to improve service in Canada (especially with today’s multi-year Paramount deal).

You can check out Netflix Canada here. The first month is free.

If you login to your account settings, you now adjust your video quality settings. Good quality uses up to 0.3 GB/hour, Better quality uses up to 0.7 GB/hour, and Best quality uses up to 1GB/ hour (or up to 2.3 GB/hour for HD):

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