the dreaded “lag” — a euphemism for latency experienced in games — is a crucial factor in the success or rapid demise of certain gaming franchises. Responsiveness is critical as games potentially have hundreds or thousands of players within the same virtual world and will become even more pronounced as the gaming landscape converges with concepts such as the Metaverse. But beyond game play challenges within cloud gaming services, concurrent downloading of a new game title or even a game update can be an issue. For example, suppose 50,000 gamers simultaneously initiate a download of a new 122GB game through a single ISP. In that case, it will undoubtedly result in a notable surge of traffic. 

These surges can surpass the capacity limits of the ISP’s peering infrastructure and strain the capacity of the ISP’s core. While traditional CDNs may have successfully brought the content closer to its final destination, the bottleneck may still reside within the ISP — in other words, the last mile network — leading to slow game downloads and significant lag for all subscribers across the network.  

Powering an Immersive Future

The evolving landscape of immersive content encompassing virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and 360-degreemixed reality experiences, holds immense potential for widespread adoption. Despite its burgeoning popularity in virtual education, meetings, and entertainment, the seamless flow of this content remains complex within a diverse ecosystem of creators and intermediaries. Engaging in industry dialogues around immersive experiences sheds light on the strategic utilisation of collaboration, standardised technologies, and rigorous testing to elevate the delivery of premium immersive content at scale. Although lacking a universally accepted industry definition, immersive content typically offers multi-dimensional, often interactive experiences, ranging from VR/AR gaming to ground-breaking narratives exemplified by productions such as Netflix's Bandersnatch.

Immersive content presents unique challenges owing to its bandwidth-intensive nature, necessitating higher throughput and lower latency compared to traditional video streaming. For instance, streaming 360-degree videos demands significantly more bandwidth — over 25Mbps for UHD 4K and 50Mbps+ for UHD 8K — while immersive gaming requires low latency to ensure uninterrupted experiences. This content extends beyond media and entertainment and finds applications in remote healthcare, manufacturing, and beyond.

The success in delivering immersive video at scale hinges on increased collaboration among partners spanning the creation and distribution chain. Initiatives such as Open Edge Caching specifications underscore the need for cooperation to drive innovation and establish industry standards, unlocking unprecedented content dimensions and propelling sustained technological advancements in the coming decade.

Open Caching: Embracing a Standards-based Approach

Looking to the future, most video streaming and some gaming use cases will benefit from edge-based caching technologies. At the heart of this change is Open Caching, a standardised approach originated and supported by the Streaming Video Technology Alliance (SVTA). This new architecture has gained significant traction and continues to redefine how content publishers reach and engage with their audiences.

The collaborative model brings together content publishers, game developers, network operators, and consumers, creating a mutually beneficial ecosystem that promotes high-quality content delivery at the network edge, deep within service provider networks. By pushing content caching and delivery closer to users than ever before, Open Caching tackles latency and the challenges posed by peak demand head-on, efficiently streaming live and on-demand video content, cloud gaming, and large software downloads to eager consumers.

With live and on-demand streaming services continuing to cannibalise traditional TV audiences, there is a likelihood that within the next two decades all content will be streamed over IP networks. For the industry to meet this demand, using the edge for content and application delivery will become a universal requirement.