Let's start the day with NEWSSandvine Takes the Byte Out of Real-Time Entertainment Metrics
9/7/2011 7:00:01 AM - Market Wire
Analytics Dashboard Helps Service Providers Measure Quality of Video Experience
WATERLOO, ONTARIO, Sep 7, 2011 (Marketwire via COMTEX News Network) --
Note to Editors: There are 3 photos and 1 video associated with this press release.
Attention Business and Technology Editors
In order to empower Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to measure and enhance real-time media traffic, Sandvine, (TSX:SVC)(AIM:SAND) a leading provider of intelligent broadband network solutions, today announced the addition of a Real-Time Entertainment Dashboard to its library of Network Analytics dashboards. The new dashboard provides business intelligence that is particularly relevant to streaming audio and video traffic from providers such as Netflix, YouTube and Spotify, including measurements regarding the quality of the video experience, the viewing duration, and the associated revenue generated by the adoption of over-the-top services.
The move towards measuring quality, time, adoption and revenue metrics for real-time entertainment applications is revolutionary to the industry, and has numerous benefits for both CSPs and broadband subscribers. Other solutions in the marketplace merely measure video byte consumption, which is of limited business use. Byte consumption is the product of factors like video resolution, codec and duration, combined with the number and duration of videos actually viewed by subscribers. Sandvine's Real-Time Entertainment Dashboard measures and reports on these fundamental metrics individually, providing insight for CSPs into the quality achieved per network location, per time of day, and per device type (figure 1); leading to more informed network operations decisions. Insight into how much revenue is being generated by over-the-top applications alerts CSPs to new business opportunities and opens the door to novel marketing strategies.
Sandvine's Real-Time Entertainment Dashboard quantifies the subscriber's Quality of Experience (QoE) using a patent pending QoE metric based on observable factors, like start latency, buffer stalls, resolution downshifts due to lack of bandwidth, as well as resolution compared to the capability of the device. This provides an unparalleled holistic view of transport quality in combination with presentation quality. Network test and measurement probes typically measure transport quality only, using metrics like signal-to-noise ratio at a limited number of network locations. By contrast, Sandvine's latest dashboard leverages the entire subscriber base as a distributed network, with full coverage, generating new data-points every single time a video is watched. Interim reporting is provided during the lifetime of the video, in order to assess transient quality issues. This incredibly granular data can be used in a myriad of ways: to isolate quality issues localized to particular network segments; to determine if quality degradation is the result of a network issue or if only associated with particular video services; and to measure video adoption in helpful terms of minutes and hours.
"When you watch a video online, you know whether or not the quality was acceptable - but your service provider has little or no insight into your quality of experience," said Don Bowman, Sandvine's CTO. "The push is on for service providers to deliver a quality Internet experience. With Sandvine's Real-Time Entertainment Dashboard, service providers now have the means to quantify the online quality and implement measures to help ensure a positive user experience."
For an overview of Sandvine's new Real-Time Entertainment Dashboard, tune into a webinar on September 20, co-hosted with Informa. Sandvine will also be hosting demonstrations of Network Analytics and the Real-Time Entertainment Dashboard at RCA Fall Expo (booth #6), September 14-16 in Las Vegas, USA, and at Broadband World Forum (stand B3), September 27-29 in Paris, France.
ABOUT NETWORK ANALYTICS
Sandvine's Network Analytics business intelligence solutions help get data out of the network and into the boardroom by offering unique insight into broadband network usage and trends. This data, presented in a series of handy, organized dashboards, help ISPs make informed operations, executive and marketing decisions. Sandvine's network-wide visibility is unparalleled and offers unique insight into Internet activity and trends.