Low latency, flawless quality, and outstanding content: these are just a few of the demands video streaming providers are expected to meet to ensure end users receive a high-quality viewing experience. Satisfying customers, however, is no mean feat, as operators and service providers must constantly innovate to stay competitive. In addition, end users are increasingly conscious of the impact video streaming has on the environment and are opting for more sustainable services. To achieve outstanding quality, stand out amongst the competition, and protect revenues by keeping costs down, content providers need to collaborate closely with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and embrace new, advanced technologies.
Why collaboration matters for Quality of Experience (QoE) and sustainability
Over the past few years, the media landscape has experienced a monumental shift from traditional pay TV to an increasing number of video streaming services. Content rights that were once tied to pay TV are now moving to streaming platforms, especially for live events. While streaming provides convenience, the quality of live streaming can vary significantly, often depending on the popularity of an event. High-demand events can lead to inconsistent user experiences due to the challenges of scaling.
QoE is a major challenge in today’s video streaming environment. The quality of live video streaming often falls short compared to traditional pay TV due to the underlying infrastructure differences. Pay TV relies on telco networks, where dedicated mechanisms, such as broadcast networks or quality-of-service controls, ensure reliable delivery. These networks prioritise video traffic to maintain high quality, especially for live broadcasts. In contrast, streaming operates entirely as data over the internet, which lacks these prioritisation protocols. This means that video streaming can suffer from quality issues, particularly during high-demand events, because video data competes with other types of data for limited network resources.
Partnering with ISPs can help content providers significantly improve video streaming quality. ISPs have in-depth knowledge of their own network capacity, customer routes, and optimal paths, allowing them to efficiently manage and prioritise video traffic. When content is served directly through an ISP’s network, it is typically delivered closer to the end user, reducing latency, packet loss, and the risk of bandwidth issues. This leads to smoother viewing experiences with faster start times, fewer freezes, and more consistent video quality. By shortening the data path within a controlled network, ISPs enable content providers to achieve higher reliability in video delivery, ensuring that streams perform well under varying network conditions and provide a better overall experience for the viewer.
Beyond quality improvements, using a shared infrastructure for video streaming can reduce both costs and energy use. Traditionally, each CDN maintains its own dedicated caches, which results in multiple, separate infrastructures within telecom networks. This siloed approach means that each CDN or content provider has caches solely dedicated to delivering their specific content, leading to inefficiencies. By consolidating these resources onto a single, telco-operated platform, capacity can be dynamically allocated based on demand across various content providers. This setup not only optimises server use — reducing idle servers that are otherwise powered on but underutilised — it decreases the carbon footprint generated from manufacturing and deploying additional hardware.
Today, the CDN industry is at an inflection point: global CDN providers have been riding a wave of booming content delivery and are facing a notable traffic slowdown, impacting their revenue and bottom lines. In response, CDN providers have tough decisions to make, from implementing layoffs to selling assets to competitors for consolidation and diversifying their business models as they navigate this shift in demand. This transformation could lead to a plateau in available capacity, possibly driving up prices as supply and demand adjust. Given these challenges, mutualising CDN costs by leveraging ISP infrastructure — much like telecom operators sometimes share a 5G network — could present a sustainable solution, helping CDNs manage costs and offer reliable, scalable services to customers.
Technology innovations fuelling high-quality, sustainable video streaming
By partnering with ISPs, content providers can adopt innovative technologies, such as multicast ABR (mABR) to improve network efficiencies and enable scalable, more eco-friendly streaming. mABR is revolutionising live event streaming by enabling providers to deliver a single, shared stream to countless viewers, even during high-demand events, regardless of audience size. By implementing mABR, providers can drastically lower the required network capacity, ultimately cutting down on the costs involved in delivering high-quality streaming experiences.
Furthermore, using an ISP’s network, content providers can leverage the rich household data that ISPs already possess for targeted advertising. ISPs know details like the duration of a customer’s service, household size (inferred from multiple mobile lines or data usage patterns), and even the likely presence of children based on age restrictions. This untapped data can enhance targeted advertising significantly, allowing providers to deliver more personalised, relevant ads to viewers and boost monetisation.
To meet the demands for high-quality and low-latency streaming, content providers must collaborate with ISPs. Through this partnership, content providers can leverage ISP infrastructures and adopt efficient, scalable technologies — such as multicast ABR and edge caching — empowering them to both lower costs and reduce their environmental impact, all while enhancing the viewer experience.
