CONTROLLING BANDWIDTH USAGE BY MEDIA STREAMS BY LIMITING STREAMING OPTIONS PROVIDED TO CLIENT SYSTEMS

Systems and methods for controlling network bandwidth utilization by media streaming services are provided. According to one embodiment, a data stream associated with streaming media content being requested from an external service provider by a client device associated with a private network is intercepted by a network manager associated with the private network. Streaming options made available for streaming the streaming media content are limited by the network manager by: (i) identifying a policy applicable to the data stream; (ii) identifying a manifest specifying multiple versions in which the streaming media content is available to be streamed, within the data stream; (iii) determining the multiple versions by parsing the manifest; (iv) determining a prohibited version that exceeds a bandwidth limitation specified by the policy; (v) updating the manifest by removing information regarding the prohibited version from the manifest; and (vi) providing the updated manifest to the client device.