Broadpeak: Delivering State-of-the-Art Streaming Performance

In the early days of Digital TV, live video content was primarily broadcasted via multi-system operators (MSOs) that received signals from terrestrial or satellite networks and distributed them to their subscribers. Today, the video content arena is a hyper-competitive market where MSOs and telecom operators compete against Over-The-Top (OTT) content providers that provide on-demand television and movie features. A prime example of a paradigm-shifting OTT offering has been Netflix, which offers millions of worldwide subscribers access to the premier, copyrighted content in the best possible picture quality across all devices. And with other OTT giants also climbing the ranks of consumer polls for a few years now, many MSOs are looking to transition from their legacy broadcasting set-up to a hybrid one opening their system to work in collaboration with the OTT players to provide a wider choice to their subscribers. Unlike conventional satellite-based video broadcasting that only involve the MSO, OTT video streaming is delivered via several disparate entities including the OTT content provider and telecom operator. Even though it is a market with high potential, many emerging OTT firms that lack the 'Netflix-level' IT, innovational and financial resources struggle to meet the ever-increasing consumer demand for higher streaming quality with the highest efficiency regardless of whether the content is delivered over a fix or a mobile-based telecom network.

Addressing this need for a partner who can assist OTT media firms to deliver ultra-HD content in a reliable way by utilizing the network efficiently and minimizing quality drops is France-based Broadpeak. The company is the leading provider of content delivery network (CDN) and video streaming solutions for content providers and pay-TV operators worldwide. Broadpeak's portfolio comprises video delivery components that enable its clients to leverage state-of-the-art streaming avenues such as its cloud PVR, multicast ABR, multi-CDN, and video analytics offerings, which it offers through its advanced CDN solution. "Our portfolio powers the delivery of movies, television programming, and other content over managed networks and the internet for viewing on any type of device in a highly efficient manner," says Jacques Le Mancq, president and CEO at Broadpeak.

Founded in 2011, Broadpeak has assisted numerous content providers and OTT media organizations in building a strong and global consumer footprint. This success can be attributed to its culture of continuous innovation that the company's team effectively utilizes to understand the prevalent challenges in the existing media streaming space and then develop capabilities to mitigate them.

Backing its passionate workforce and tech-driven DNA is its suite of video delivery solutions like Advanced CDN and multicast ABR, that can be deployed on any networks and any environment (on-premises, in private or public clouds). Broadpeak’s solutions significantly enhance the streaming performance by, for instance, distributing popular content from a closer location to the consumers.. Similarly, the company's unique nanoCDN™ technology enables its clients to simplify live sports streaming by enabling single-time network usage through broadband gateways, which is followed by a multicast stream across all users. "Instead of streaming live sports over telecom networks a million times for a million users, we leverage our solution's software-driven and broadband portals to receive media over a single signal and multicast it to millions of users," explains Le Mancq. Apart from its CDN capabilities, Broadpeak also provides A/B testing mechanisms that facilitate its clients to compare potential new updates and measure their impact on end-users in real-time.

Owing to such unmatched competencies, Broadpeak has built an expansive partner network comprising global and local internet service providers (ISPs), telecom operators, OTT content creators, and broadcast services firms. The company leverages its partners to continually understand and resolve the emerging challenges in media delivery. In fact, Broadpeak recently showcased an end-to-end workflow for Streaming Video Alliance Open Caching, which is a set of open APIs that standardizes the interface between the hosted local cache infrastructure of an ISP, the party operating it, and content providers. "By moving hosted video caches as close as possible to end users’ terminals, local caching reduces traffic across a telecom operator’s core network and improves the streaming quality of experience (QoE)," states Le Mancq.

Highlighting the impacts of Broadpeak's portfolio is a recent success story with streaming live soccer with DAZN—a global sports OTT streaming platform— by leveraging a telecom operator's network to scale the video delivery and offer a better quality to the consumers. In this instance, Broadpeak was approached to enhance the user experiences across the various sporting events only available on streaming. To achieve this, the company collaborated with Italian telecom giant, TIM, and deployed a solution that pushed the DAZN content over multicast to a nanoCDN inside the TIM set-top boxes, thereby enabling scalable high-quality video streams over the telecom operator’s network. Similarly, Broadpeak has ignited numerous other success stories helping clients of all sizes with all their streaming needs.

Moving forward, Le Mancq aims to maintain Broadpeak's year-over-year growth pattern and hire great people that will help Broadpeak strive in this evolving streaming environment.