That’s right! You can not only kill two birds with one stone but three. Cost reduction, high performance, and energy efficiency. So, what is this magical stone? Let us guide you through.
Why Cost Reduction Matter in Video Distribution
Reducing costs related to video distribution matters for several reasons. First and foremost, as video demand continues to soar, more efficient and cost-effective delivery solutions becomes essential to meet with a fast-increasing traffic. With the shift from broadcast to streaming, companies are facing increasing pressure to deliver more content to more viewers and accommodate live streaming, UHD, low latency, while maintaining an exceptional quality of experience. The good news is that it doesn’t necessarily have to mean investing in more infrastructure capacity or expansive upgrades as one could first believe. Thanks to cost-effective distribution strategies powered by smart technologies, businesses can limit the investments in infrastructure upgrades or avoid new deployments and keep up with the evolving landscape of video delivery without breaking the bank. And even save money along the way!

Moreover, cost reduction in video distribution is crucial for companies looking to remain competitive in the market. With the rising popularity of streaming services and the proliferation of video content, businesses must find ways to deliver high-quality video to retain end-users while keeping costs in check. By optimizing their distribution networks and adopting more efficient technologies, companies can streamline operations, improve performance, and ultimately gain a competitive edge in the industry.
Additionally, decreasing the costs of video distribution can have a direct impact on the overall profitability of a business. As the demand for video content continues to grow, companies that are able to deliver video efficiently and cost-effectively can increase their margins and drive revenue growth. By investing in solutions that cut distribution costs, businesses can improve their bottom line and allocate resources towards other areas of the business, such as content creation and customer acquisition. Ultimately, implementing cost-effective distribution strategies can help businesses achieve long-term sustainability and success in the rapidly evolving video delivery landscape.
The 4 pillars to reduce streaming costs
There are four pillars to contain and reduce costs.

The first pillar: Open CDN
The first pillar emphasizes the importance of utilizing existing infrastructure to deliver streaming services and sharing resources from ISPs. By mutualizing existing CDN resources belonging to ISPs, video services providers can avoid the need to deploy and maintain their own streaming servers, resulting in cost savings. Everybody wins with this approach:
- Content providers are guaranteed to be able to provide a good Quality of Experience (QoE) to their subs, they can increase eligibility and optimize delivery costs.
- ISPs benefit from optimized infrastructure costs, traffic control, and the ability to differentiate based on QoE.
Additionally, this approach contributes to a more sustainable streaming system by utilizing common caches rather than deploying individual ones for each content provider, resulting in less infrastructure and reducing electricity consumption, especially during major live events where capacity is often wasted by streaming one stream per user instead of one stream per program.
This collaborative approach not only enhances the overall streaming experience but also supports a more eco-friendly and efficient use of resources for streaming services delivery.

The second pillar: Streaming Performance
The second pillar, streaming performance, aims to optimize efficiency and therefore reducing the number of servers, GHG emissions, and power consumption. By streamlining operations and deploying advanced high-performing technologies, video service providers can achieve remarkable improvements in energy efficiency and cost savings for video streaming services. An example of such technology is Broadpeak BkS450 streaming software.
The latest version of Broadpeak’s BkS450 streaming software achieves up to 1.09 Tbps of HTTPS traffic with a power efficiency of up to 1.21 Gbps/Watt – an 11% improvement in energy efficiency over the previous generation. This software offers a remarkable 72% improvement in throughput performance while consuming significantly less power than traditional video servers. By optimizing streaming performance with technologies like the BkS450 software, companies can reduce the number of servers needed, leading to significant cost savings in infrastructure investments and electricity bills, especially important as energy costs continue to rise.
The third pillar: Cloud technology
Cloud technology, the third pillar, can also bring powerful tools to reduce further the cost of video delivery, in particular in the way caches are deployed in a video distribution system.
Caches are deployed in a video distribution system to allow one-to-many connections; one same content is downloaded only once down to the cache level and then replicated as many times as there are users requesting it on, resulting in significant infrastructure reduction in all the section of the network located upstream of these caches. So, the deeper caches can be pushed to the edge of the network, the greater the savings, and incidentally the better the quality for the end users since streaming is performed from a closer location.
However, passed a certain depth in the network, the number of people served by each cache entity decreases to a point where the statistical effect is no longer valid and appears the need to adapt to the specificities of the smaller group that is addressed, for example by starting instances only when enough users are active at the same time in the area, or automatically resizing resources when reaching a certain threshold of usage. In other words, edge caching requires to be dynamic and more context-aware and this is typically something where cloud technology, containers orchestration in particular, play a key role.
This adaptive approach enables companies to allocate resources more effectively, reduce operational costs, and enhance the overall performance of their streaming services.

The fourth pillar: Multicast ABR
The fourth pillar, multicast ABR (MABR), revolutionizes the delivery of live events to large audiences by providing the same physical stream to all users, even during massive events with millions of viewers. By leveraging multicast ABR, companies can significantly reduce network dimensioning and therefore the costs associated with delivering high-quality streaming content.
This approach is solidified today as shown by the increasing adoption of MABR by major video service providers such as BT group, TIM, Bouygues Telecom and Orange. MABR not only enables to save money but also enhances the user experience by ensuring a consistent and reliable streaming service for all viewers.
By implementing these cost-effective solutions, companies can optimize streaming performance, resource allocation, and operational efficiency to provide high-quality content to a broad audience in a more environmentally friendly manner, and at lower costs.

In today’s rapidly evolving landscape of video streaming, embracing cost-effective and sustainable solutions is not only important for companies to achieve top performance and efficiency but also to lead the way in environmental responsibility. By investing in cutting-edge technologies and implementing innovative strategies, businesses can streamline operations, improve user experiences, and gain a competitive edge in the market.
Typical Reduction from Broadpeak’s Model
Several scenarios of cost reductions could occur, depending on the technology choices made and the local and specific context. The figure below illustrates an estimation of the expected savings.

The four pillars of cost reduction outlined in this article offer solutions to help all OTT players achieve top performance, sustainability, and cost savings. By focusing on streaming performance, Open CDN, cloud technology, and multicast ABR, companies can optimize operations, reduce energy consumption, and enhance the overall user experience while staying competitive in the video streaming industry.
The Stone
So, you may be wondering with all this talk of four pillars, what’s the ONE single stone we’ve been raving about, right? Well, that stone is none other than Broadpeak! We develop cutting-edge solutions to ensure top performance, energy efficiency, and sustainability in video delivery. Exciting stuff, right?
Don’t wait around any longer – reach out to one of our experts today and see how Broadpeak can work wonders for your video streaming needs!