Summer of Sports: What position does Open Caching play?

This summer, the world witnessed a bonanza of sporting events, headlined by Euro 2024 and the Paris Olympics. With viewing figures estimated to reach a cumulative live audience of 5 billion people worldwide for the Euros alone, maintaining superior Quality of Experience (QoE) across video-on-demand and OTT services has never been more complex or costly. Traditional Content Delivery Network (CDN) approaches are struggling to keep up with the demand for new formats, including virtual and augmented reality (AR/VR), Ultra High Definition (UHD) video, immersive social media and online gaming.

The rising challenge of large-scale live sports streaming
Recent data from Amdocs predicted that the Paris Olympics will be the first Games where streaming becomes the preferred viewing method for the majority of viewers in the US (51%, up from 28% at Tokyo 2021). This anticipated increase in live streaming viewership poses a significant challenge for traditional CDNs and streaming service providers as they strive to uphold a high QoE for viewers. Traditional CDNs place their caches primarily outside of Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks at public or private peering points. This approach typically means content delivered by traditional CDNs must traverse the public Internet and peering sites to enter ISP networks, making it vulnerable to congestion or capacity limitations on the path to the end user.

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