How to Ensure Streaming Video QoE for Hard-to-Reach Subscribers

Streaming platforms are spending billions of dollars for online-streaming rights to major sports and entertainment events. Any streaming platform needs to be sure that the experience their customers have while watching their content is of a quality that will keep them engaged, helping to assure return on investment.

As more video content is made available exclusively online, the ISP networks over which this content is delivered become increasingly strained, particularly during live events, and this strain adversely impacts the quality of the viewing experience for the consumer.

The usual strategy employed by content providers (the streaming platforms) to distribute their content using a range of typical Content Delivery Network (CDN) providers does not solve the quality challenge for their customers who are located on the outskirts of the internet — ISPs serving smaller populations and areas with low population density. These ISPs struggle with managing upstream connectivity during significant online content events, and this results in a lower quality video experience for their customers because of network congestion and issues that lie outside of their control.

This problem is most acute for 10 –15% of content subscribers who live outside metropolitan areas, on the outskirts of the internet. Even consumers in urban locations can suffer from quality problems when their ISPs are not able to handle the volumes of traffic associated with online streaming events.

This is a challenge for the content provider and the ISP alike. Both are trying to provide a high quality service to the same customer and secure their revenues, and both are being impacted by elements outside of their direct control that result in a lower quality experience than desired for the consumer, and a higher risk of customer churn.

Fortunately, there is a solution for content providers that is designed to ensure high Quality of Experience (QoE) for viewers who are connected to the ISPs at the outskirts of the internet, even during high volume live events: Edge-Native CDNs that are specifically designed to enable content delivery within these outskirt locations.

This paper provides an overview of how the increase in streaming video consumption and event-based content is impacting subscribers’ viewing experiences and how what happens in ISP networks affects viewer QoE. It introduces and describes how Edge-Native CDNs can help both content providers and the outskirt ISPs, keeping their mutual customers happy.