How Telcos & ISPs can learn to love OTT

How Telcos and ISPs
Can Learn to Love OTT
Using localized CDNs to profit from improved QoS

Executive Summary
Online video consumption is surging, and with it the volume of IP traffic coursing over telco
networks. The traffic volumes— already immense — will swell significantly in the next few
years. Consider:

• Video over IP traffic is projected to increase
to nearly 35 exabytes by 2014

• Online video will represent 91% of all
consumer traffic by 2014

• At those numbers, it would take a person
more than 500,000 years to watch the
amount of online video that will cross the
internet in a single month

The rapid growth of online video has created a
vicious cycle for telcos and ISPs, however.
Accommodating the insatiable consumer appetite
for more and better quality online video requires
enormous network infrastructure investments.

Broadband subscription revenue alone won’t be nearly enough to recoup these
expenditures, however. The pressure is on telcos, therefore, to establish new business
models and revenue streams that reshape today’s vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle. One
such opportunity is for network operators to launch content delivery networks (CDNs) and
exploit some of the inherent advantages that they have over traditional CDNs.

With this white paper we will demonstrate how it is now possible for telcos to improve
their position in the content-to-consumer value chain, create a more sustainable business
model to value chain members and profit from escalating over-the-top (OTT) video
traffic.

IP Video Management Analytics 1

The Problem
The rapid growth and increasing popularity of over-the-top video puts telcos and ISPs in
danger of being trapped in a vicious cycle of investing increasingly more in broadband
infrastructure with no obvious reward beyond upgraded broadband subscriptions — which
are themselves subject to price competition.

Homes that once housed a single PC now have a mixture of laptops, tablet devices and
smart phones competing for the same bandwidth. Meanwhile, the reliability of the video
delivery becomes more important as the length of the sessions increase and as the screens
get larger; a trend that will accelerate with the penetration of connected TVs.

To maintain customer loyalty — especially within the younger, more Internet-centric
generation — telcos and ISPs have no choice but to embrace online video services. But
how do they make a viable business out of it and still meet consumer demand for ever
increasing service quality for broadband entertainment offerings?

The surge in online media consumption has created problems for content providers too.
While they already pay for improved quality of service (QoS) through traditional CDNs,
they fall short of their quest to make broadband a viable TV business because of:

• Unpredictable quality: Existing cable and satellite pay-TV services have set the bar
high, conditioning consumers to expect an uninterrupted stream of HD programming.
Content providers using incumbent CDNs for OTT services have not been able to
replicate that kind of dependable, high quality viewing experience online, however,
which has limited their appeal.

• Blind spots: Online content has traditionally been delivered to the edge of an ISP
network, with the “last mile” of the content’s journey delivered over-the-top with no
guarantees on the quality of service. This leaves content owners in the dark about
the actual QoS levels delivered to the end user. In order to effectively monetize
online video, content providers will need to be able to provide assured quality all the
way to the end user.

• Scalability issues: For broadcasters, the online video opportunity is great. However,
the current Internet infrastructure is not geared for this expansion. To be successful,
content owners must be able to offer continuous access even at peak times,
especially for live TV.

• Low expectations: Internet video has swelled in popularity because it is available
on-demand across multiple screens, not because it is of high quality. To make a
dent in the pay-TV market, OTT providers will need to raise quality expectations
for online video, then deliver on them.

Compounding the overall problem, content owners and ISPs have long viewed each other
as adversaries and, as such, there has not been a commercial model that makes sense and
is sustainable for both parties.


The Solution
The OTT threat for telcos can be recast as an opportunity because they have what content
owners need: the ability to support greater scale and improved quality of service for
online media. Telcos have inherent advantages to provide tangible value and improve their
position in the content-to-consumer value chain. These advantages are:

• Deep Network Caching: The ability to cache
video deep in their networks and deliver it
much closer to the end user. Telcos control
the all-important “last mile” and can ensure
that content is not exposed to the vagaries WARNING

of “best-effort” delivery. By caching video
at the point where video is served they can
avoid upstream points of contention and Last Mile
reduce latency. That means a better user
experience is inherent even without specific service assurance. The bottom line is
faster content delivery and improved video quality of experience (QoE).

• Network Intelligence: The ability to route traffic more efficiently based on network
intelligence gathered much closer to end users.

• Private Network: The means to more securely deliver online video because the
transit is over a localized CDN’s private network, avoiding the Internet altogether.

• Home Market Relationships: Strong relationships with ISPs and content owners
in their home markets. Courtesy of their IPTV offers, many have in-house content
expertise. Some are already extending these content relationships to the online
world as they replicate their private network IPTV offer for personal computers,
smart phones and other devices. Telcos are also involved in the development of
connected TV platforms and stand-alone connected TV offers with their own set-top
box devices, so building the additional broadband infrastructure needed to propel
these services is a natural evolution.

• Pent Up Demand: A pool of content owners that are willing to pay for improved QoS
for over-the-top video.


Content owners, in turn, are likely to support the Telco CDN approach because:

• They can expand their content offering by using the Internet to deliver more live,
linear programming and on-demand services. This will help them extend their
reach and boost viewer engagement, which are key metrics for every broadcaster.
Important benefits will include reaching multiple screens in the home and helping
viewers see content they would otherwise have missed in catch-up mode.

• They can finally provide advertisers with
guaranteed picture quality that maintains the
integrity of both the advertising and editorial
content. This is a must because advertisers
will not tolerate buffering and other glitches
that degrade viewer engagement.

• They can generate a larger subscriber base
by virtue of being able to guarantee high
quality, uninterrupted programming.

• They can deliver a streaming alternative
to DVD rental or Pay TV VOD, which is
increasingly the preferred delivery option for
consumers, even for on-demand content.


The Wholesale CDN Model
Network operators can now deploy advanced, video-centric CDN infrastructure that
finally enables reliable, high quality delivery of video over IP to any computer, TV or
mobile device. Telcos can build local content delivery infrastructure and wholesale CDN
solutions that ISPs can, in turn, resell. BT Wholesale and Telefonica are good examples
of large telcos that are embracing this business-to-business-to consumer (B2B2C) model.

The key for this model to succeed is not just the provision of sophisticated CDN services
but the creation of a strong value proposition for broadcasters who need to manage the
user experience for their OTT services. In doing so, telcos can turn the threat posed
by over-the-top content into an opportunity; creating a new commercial model that is
sustainable for all parties.

Fundamental to capitalizing on this OTT opportunity is establishing premium quality of
service. By greatly improving the QoS for over-the-top content, media owners can start
to monetize their content more easily. For example, consumers may be willing to pay for
video once it can be delivered in genuine HD quality and without interruptions, especially
if it is being routed to a television screen via one of the many connected TV devices now
penetrating the market.

Telcos can provide QoS assurances as never before because they can measure and manage
every aspect of content delivery performance using Skytide Insight for Content Delivery
Networks. Skytide’s reporting and analytics solution provides Telco CDNs — including
Telefonica, Telecom Italia, BT, Telstra and Telecom Argentina — with visibility into essential
operational metrics like traffic distribution and volume, capacity utilization and the billing
trends and bandwidth consumption of their customers. These measurements allow Telco
CDNs to:

• Isolate and correct service quality issues

• Forecast traffic and provision capacity

• Justify pricing and ensure accurate billing

An essential component in making the B2B2C
model work is the ability for the CDN to give each IMAGE HERE
ISP a view of their network performance across
all their content customers and, in addition, offer
content owners a view of their activity across
all ISPs. This wholesale level of ‘virtualization’
is only available with Skytide Insight for CDNs
reporting & analytics.


Business Benefits of Wholesale Telco CDNs
The whole supply chain for online media can be made more efficient by broadcasters and
ISPs collaborating around a joint commercial model, helping to move the market forward.

The wholesale CDN approach works because ISPs can purchase the CDN services and,
in turn, sell an optimized video experience to online content providers —including
broadcasters with catch-up TV services. The platform also helps ISPs manage their
network traffic.

There is also a strong value proposition for broadcasters who need to manage the user
experience for their OTT services. They benefit from:

• The provision of video content — including live TV — with an assured level of service
all the way to the viewer.
• Rich usage data that becomes available when collaborating with ISPs.
• QoE that is directly linked to monetization opportunities in the form of
advertising,subscription and Pay Per View revenues. In fact, research indicates
that viewers whose QoE is diminished by video rebuffering click away over 81% of
the time rather than wait for the content to load (source: TubeMogul).

• QoE is diminished by video rebuffering click away over 81% of the time rather than
wait for the content to load.

A real-world scenario of how a wholesale CDN can use Skytide Insight for CDNs might look
like this:

To keep QoS levels high, the Telco CDN monitors the incidence of error codes over time
through the Requests by Status Code KPI, paying particular attention to red flags like the
dreaded “404 Not Found” and “408 Request Timeout” errors.

By hovering over individual bars in the graph, it can view
the numbers and percentages that each represents.


To drill down and further isolate the problem, it can
click on each of the bars in the graph and generate
a new dialog box that displays requests by customer,
edge location, country or ISP.

In reviewing the data, the service provider is
particularly concerned with the incidence of
404 errors emanating from a particular ISP —
both in terms of the total number of errors and
the percentage that they represent.

To uncover the source of the problem further, it clicks
on the bar for the ISP in question and discovers that a
significant number of 404 errors originate from a single
content provider.

After identifying this problem, the Telco CDN
switches to the “Show by Customer” view and
drills down to see if the problems are coming
largely from a particular content asset and
then makes sure that the asset is being handled
properly within the end-to-end process of
making it available on the Content Delivery
Network.

Only by drilling down to get a multi-dimensional view does the service provider gain the
insight necessary to maintain premium QoS levels.


Conclusion
Online video consumption is ballooning, as viewers increasingly turn to “over the top”
content delivered across a host of devices.

This surge in online video has created a vicious cycle for telcos and ISPs, however, as they
struggle to find new revenue streams that can offset the huge network infrastructure
investments necessary to keep pace with OTT bandwidth demands.

To recast OTT content from a threat to an opportunity, telcos are increasing launching
wholesale CDN services, which enables those in the digital media value chain to more
equitably profit from the escalating consumption of online video.

Central to making this model work is the ability for Telco CDNs to give each ISP and
content owner with a complete and comprehensive view of their activity across the entire
network. Only Skytide’s reporting and analytics solution can provide this capability. Plus,
Skytide allows service providers to measure QoS in such rich detail that they can provide
guaranteed levels of video quality and, in turn, enable IPTV services to compete with
established pay TV providers.

To learn more about Skytide and how we can help make your Telco CDN initiative a
success, contact our sales team at 510-250-4275 or sales@skytide.com.


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