It is common practice for streaming services to reduce bit rate at points and times of congestion to avoid buffering, but this can defeat the object of improving the overall viewing experience, according to CDN provider Akamai. Service providers tend to regard lowering the bit rate temporarily to sacrifice some picture resolution as a lesser evil than buffering, which turns viewers off quickly and is a major cause of churn in OTT. But excessive use of bit rate reduction means that viewers expecting say HD quality are often having to make do with SD or even worse for a significant proportion of the running time. This too can provoke churn even if it is more of a slow burn, especially…