Content Delivery Network News in September
Content delivery network news in September has been coming thick and fast. From the development of new content delivery network technologies to partnerships between CDN providers and global companies looking to accelerate their online data, there has been plenty of news in the content delivery network industry this September. We’ll look over a few of the more noteworthy happenings here.
Broadpeak Content Delivery Network Provider to Partner with Telstra to Boost Online Video
We covered the unstoppable rise in demand for the online video acceleration services offered by many content delivery network providers last month. It is proving to be the latest battleground in a highly competitive industry. As such, it makes another appearance in this months content delivery network news round up.
Continuing this trend, Telstra, a leading telecommunications and TV provider in Australia, is partnering with Broadpeak to implement an innovative solution to optimise video quality and efficiency over fixed and mobile networks. Given the meteoric rise in use of mobile networks thanks to the reduction in price of mobile phones and phone contracts, it’s easy to see why this partnership will be beneficial for both companies.
“Video streaming is driving a rapid increase in mobile data growth and brings new opportunities to further improve the video experience for our customers efficiently on our network,” said Channa Seneviratne, Telstra’s executive director network and infrastructure engineering. “By forming this strategic partnership with Broadpeak and through Telstra’s investments in media optimization, such as LTE-Broadcast and HEVC, we remain committed to delivering to our customers the highest quality and most compatible streaming experience, while achieving network efficiency. In due course, we look forward to offering this valuable solution with other telco operators outside of Australia as part of our alliance with Broadpeak.”
Broadpeak and Telstra’s solution will intelligently detect device capability in real time and combine business rules defined in the umbrellaCDN to maximize the bits for quality curve of video delivered over the network. Advanced codecs such as HEVC, and the one-to-many efficiency of LTE-Broadcast will also form part of the real time decisions made to drive greater end-to-end benefits.
“By using this solution, operators will no longer need to wait for mass adoption before converting to a new codec to maximize their end users’ video streaming QoE; instead, they will be able to take advantage of bandwidth efficiencies early and deliver better experiences at the leading edge of the adoption curve,” said Jacques Le Mancq, CEO at Broadpeak. “Working with Telstra, we are proud to be able to soon offer what will be the world’s first solution that combines unicast delivery, LTE-Broadcast, analytics, and cloud technologies to boost end-user video quality experiences and content delivery savings for operators.”
Theta Blockchain Based Video Delivery Network Provider to Partner with Korean Media Giants to Improve Video Revenue and Engagement
Another prominent content delivery network news video technology story from this month revolves around Theta. Theta is a video delivery network provider that has based its technology on Blockchain, and they have announced an important partnership with South Korea’s MBN – a sub division of Maekyung Media Group, which is a highly-diversified media company that owns some of the biggest names in communications and broadcasting in South Korea – and CJ Hello, a subsidiary of the $25B Korean conglomerate CJ group and one of the country’s largest cable TV operators and mobile providers.
The partnership will see the South Korean giants take advantage of Theta’s groundbreaking technology to boost video revenues and engagement in the country.
“Theta’s impressive early results from June convinced us to take a closer look at Theta as a media blockchain partner to build a decentralized video delivery network,” said Mr. Ryu Ho-Gil, CEO of MBN. “We’re excited to collaborate with Theta to achieve three key business goals, deepen user engagement
and session times across our platform, reduce content delivery costs and drive increased market share. Together, we hope to explore a range of exciting opportunities to deliver content in new ways.”
South Korea is a global leader in blockchain, media technology and innovation. The country recently announced a $200M investment in blockchain research and refined regulations to decrease blockchain fraud and open the market for responsible development. Theta’s token was recently listed on Bithumb, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Korea.
“Speaking from my media experience working at YouTube Korea and Naver, the battle for consumer attention is fiercer than ever with a sea of content on every device from set top boxes to mobile and web desktop” said Yooshim (Karen) Huh, Senior Vice President of CJ Hello. “Theta’s new blockchain model provides a valuable weapon to stand out and encourage users to spend more time with content we’re already delivering, from hit TV shows to K-pop. With a focus on powering mobile and OTT solutions, Theta promises to be a core part of our long-term growth strategy.”
“These partnerships are like announcing deals with Comcast and Turner Media at the same time–and mark a major step toward taking blockchain technology to the mainstream and invent the future of media,” said Mitch Liu, co-founder and CEO of Theta Labs. “MBN and CJ Hello are deploying real world media and entertainment solutions powered by Theta that are still just theories for most companies. As video streaming continues to grow exponentially, these Korean media leaders are staying ahead with breakthrough innovation that’s proven to connect viewers with content at massive scale.”
Enterprise Content Delivery Network Provider Kollective to Support Microsoft 365
Away from content delivery network news regarding video acceleration, there have been developments amongst other CDN providers that focus on productivity as opposed to the improvement of delivering rich multimedia over the internet.
Kollective, an enterprise content delivery network provider based in Bend, Oregon, has announced that they will be integrating with a host of popular Microsoft productivity services to help the enterprise. These services include Microsoft Stream, Microsoft Teams, Yammer, SharePoint and Microsoft Systems Center Configuration Manager. The intention of this integration is to help enterprises scale their networks and deliver seamless video streaming and software updates to all employees wherever they are located at a fraction of the bandwidth typically required. This exciting new development will be showcased by Microsoft at their Microsoft Ignite 2018 conference in Orlando, Florida.
In addition to their integration with Microsoft’s suite of Office 365 productivity products, Kollective will also be showcasing a number of other new products they have created at Ignite 2018. This includes Kollective IQ, a network visualisation dashboard providing global enterprises the ability to easily see what’s happening across their entire network. This will prove extremely useful to network admins, as with Kollective IQ, network administrators, internal communication managers and unified communications experts will be able to easily optimise content delivery across the entire network in a very flexible and intuitive way.
Dan Vetras, CEO of Kollective said: “Today’s workplace is changing, with more employees than ever looking to adopt collaborative technology and communicate over video. At the same time, businesses are dealing with even greater pressure on their networks, with a growing number of larger and more frequent software updates making it harder than ever to manage network demands.
“Through our integrated support for Microsoft Stream, Microsoft Teams, Yammer, SharePoint and Microsoft Systems Center Configuration Manager, we are helping enterprises overcome these challenges; offering a solution that meets employee expectations without demanding that IT teams completely rebuild their infrastructure. With Kollective IQ, these teams can easily see and share metrics that matter to their specific roles, saving them time while giving them unprecedented insight into their event and network performance.”
Vishal Sood, Partner Group Program Manager at Microsoft added, “As video continues to transform the nature of workplace collaboration, network bandwidth can become an issue. We’re pleased that this integration helps our mutual customers develop more scalable networks and thereby build more collaborative working environments.”
September’s Content Delivery Network News Round Up Shows Video is Still a Key Battleground
It seems that every week a new content delivery network provider is partnering with a large telecommunications company or releasing an exciting new product aimed at speeding up the delivery of rich high definition video around the world. That has still proved to be the case this year. However, the news that Kollective are integrating with Microsoft’s suite of Office 365 products also shows that enterprise content delivery networks are still an important area of CDN growth in the industry. As more and more companies look to distribute data internally across the globe, this kinds of CDN productivity services are bound to flourish.