"While the video analytics market as a whole is rather mature, the desire for more granular, user-level data led to a shift in focus from QoS metrics to QoE services and data," wrote Eric Abbruzzese, ABI research analyst. "The increasing complexity of the IP video and OTT content markets will continue to drive both new and existing providers, operators and content owners to pursue deeper analytics capabilities to fully understand the experience of the end user."
As delivery demands continue to grow, CDNs have been forced to scale to keep up; even with new scale, one CDN often is not enough for large service providers, ABI says. As 4K and higher bitrates become more commonplace, the trend is expected to affect even small to mid-size operators. The increasing shift toward multi-CDN architectures to better handle network load goes hand in hand with QoE analytics; multi-CDN setups are often handled within a single company and sometimes in a singular product. Mobile networks will also factor in; with an estimated 120,000 petabytes of mobile video streaming usage predicted in 2019, the importance of mobile network optimization and QoE will continue to affect a majority of viewers.
"Whether mobile or wireline, operators and service providers are focused on minimizing content start times and buffering delays while maximizing video quality and stream reliability," wrote Sam Rosen, ABI's vice president of consumer research. "Real-time, granular, user-level data streams allow the opportunity for a deeper understanding of not only how a network is performing but also how individual users are affected by network idiosyncrasies. Automated load balancing and network optimization platforms will help inform future business decisions, from content licensing to CDN usage."