Video traffic is flooding mobile networks. According to our customer data mobile video traffic accounted for 55% of total mobile data traffic in 2015, and Cisco expects video to reach three quarters of the total traffic by 2020.
With more than 1.5 billion users worldwide, Facebook live video feeds have become the most popular type of post further draining mobile resources. More than half of YouTube views today come from mobile devices. In addition the number of hours spent watching videos on the mobile is up 100% over last year. The average viewing session now exceeds 40 minutes, an increase of 50%, says Ofer Gottfried, CTO at Flash Networks.
Video content delivery mechanisms burning up network resources
Even more taxing than the sheer quantity of bandwidth, is the fact that video is now delivered using the greedy adaptive bandwidth rate (ABR). ABR is designed to use the maximum amount of bandwidth available at the time of viewing, and try to maximise its network consumption to ensure the best video viewing experience. The ABR format can act as a bandwidth hog influencing traffic flows by switching bandwidth to specific applications, creating latency and worsening performance for other content and data services such as chat apps, Web Browsing and LinkedIn.
Demanding network resources becomes even more problematic with higher definition video. Streaming in 1080p takes up 3GB/hour, while 4K resolution burns through 7GB/hour, resulting in an estimated 30-53% increase in stream sizes. With the new exciting 360 Video the mobile video portion will only grow faster.
Slowing down networks, mobile video can threaten the quality of experience for other popular mobile apps. In addition streaming video that’s greedy for bandwidth can sabotage speed tests used to establish which operator is the fastest, which is an important marketing differentiator.
PC Week conducts annual speed tests comparing mobile data speeds for AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless in 30 American cities. P3 Communications together with Connect, a recognised test authority benchmarks mobile networks in Europe. The 2015 P3 CommsDay Mobile Benchmark Australia compared user experience across Telstra, Vodafone, and Optus.
How can operators take back control?
As mobile video viewing becomes the norm and people continue to crave high definition video delivered using ABR techniques, mobile operators will need to take steps to ensure a consistent quality of experience for all of their subscribers and applications.
There is adaptive bit rate management (ABM) techniques that can help balance all mobile traffic to make sure there is enough bandwidth for all data services, including messaging Facebook, etc. These solutions in addition to enforcing fair access to network resources, ensure an improved quality of experience by reducing congestion in both the radio and application layers. Both HTTP and HTTPS traffic is optimised to improve the quality of experience for everyone.
Optimising the application layer can further improve the user experience. The fingerprints of high data objects such as HD video, games and apps, can be identified and only when there is a high level of congestion that threatens the user experience this traffic can be optimised providing faster app downloads and audio and video streaming.
In today’s competitive market, not being able to deliver a superior user experience, can result in low customer satisfaction and churn. As the sheer volume of video increases, and ABR video streaming techniques hog network resources, there are technologies that can enable operators to take back control of their mobile networks ensuring a positive quality of experience for all their subscribers.
The author of this blog is Ofer Gottfried, CTO at Flash Networks.
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