Netflix CEO: 25 Mbps Should Be New ‘Baseline’

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said he “absolutely” agrees with the proposal to bump the definition of broadband from 4 megabits per second downstream to 25 Mbps down. While any speed bump would be welcome by any over-the-top video service, Hastings said the slow shift toward 4K streaming and other bandwidth-intensive services offer good reasons for the boost. Noting that one 4K stream from Netflix requires about 15 Mbps, he said consumers will also need additional headroom for things like video conferencing and home monitoring apps. “So, 25-megs is kind of baseline for the next five years as opposed to the past five years,” he said.