delivering a better data and video experience

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14 November 2013

Delivering a Better Data and

Video Experience

Mark Davis, Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Citrix Service Provider Platforms

Jannie Van Zyl, Executive Head: Innovation, Vodacom SA

Case Study: Vodacom

© 2013 Citrix | Confidential – Do Not Distribute

Topics

• The effects of data and video traffic on the network – and on

subscribers

• Techniques for managing the data traffic growth and QoE on 2G, 3G

and 4G networks

• Case Study: Vodacom South Africa - delivering a better smartphone

experience


$2.6B revenue

8,300+ employees

250,000+ customers

10,000+ partners in 100 countries

#1 Desktop & App virtualization

#2 Cloud Networking

#1 Public Clouds

#2 Web Collaboration

By the numbers…

#1 in web and video optimization for mobile networks


12+ years as web & video optimization leader

4

135+ operator customers in 60+ countries

55+ video optimization deployments

48% market share


The global impact of mobile video

6

Video is the Majority of Traffic on Mobile Networks

Source: Citrix ByteMobile Mobile Analytics Report, October 2012

iPad Owners Are Videoholics

© 2013 Citrix


Insufficient network capacity to accommodate peak

video demand

Source: Citrix ByteMobile data from live customer network

Excessive network utilization = poor subscriber experience

7

© 2013 Citrix | Confidential – Do Not Distribute 8

What is a good or bad experience?

© 2013 Citrix | Confidential – Do Not Distribute 9

What is a good or bad experience?

Subscribers will select a lower resolution video to ensure continuous playback


Phase 1 for constrained networks: optimize

everything, reduce data volume

Optimize

Operator Impact

Techniques

11

Protect the network. Control costs. Reduce stalling.

Allow more subscribers to access the network.


This approach has worked well

12

• T-Mobile Germany and Vodafone have far better mobile

Internet performance, as measured by 2012 benchmarking (measured by both 2012 Netztest of ‘Chip’ magazine and P3 Communications)

• Both are Citrix ByteMobile video and web optimization

customers

http://www.chip.de/artikel/Der-haerteste-Handy-Netztest-aller-Zeiten_57281029.html




http://www.p3-group.com/en/the-big-network-test-2012-for-germany-in-connect-magazine-53705.html


For LTE networks: selective & smarter optimization,

user experience-centric Operator Impact

13

Techniques

Improved experience = more video consumption= higher data revenue


0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

12:00:00 AM 4:00:00 AM 8:00:00 AM 12:00:00 PM 4:00:00 PM 8:00:00 PM 12:00:00 AM

Sta

llin

g / 6

0 S

eco

nd

s o

f V

ideo

Video stalling and data volume over 24 hours

Stalling without Optimization Stalling with Optimization

This approach has worked well, too

14

Without

optimization, video

experience ranges

from bad to terrible

With optimization,

video experience is

dramatically

improved and

consistent

throughout the day


About Vodacom

16

• Subscribers ᵒ 36 Million Subscribers

ᵒ 20 Million Data Capable Devices

ᵒ 15 Million Active Data Users

ᵒ 7 Million Smartphones & Tablets

• Network ᵒ ~ 10 000 Base Stations

• ~ 6000 43.2Mb/s

• ~ 750 LTE

ᵒ 99.8% 2G Coverage

ᵒ 90% 3G Coverage

ᵒ 7Mb/s (netindex)

• Traffic ᵒ 3 Petabytes per Month

• 1.5PB from Smartphones

ᵒ >400 TB Video per Month

ᵒ 80%+ YoY growth

South Africa’s Leading Mobile Network Provider


The problem

• Users expect instant gratification

ᵒ Won’t wait for a web page to load

ᵒ Don’t want their video to stall

ᵒ Experience on Vodacom network not where

we wanted it to be

• Continuous pressure on available

network bandwidth

• Deployed the Citrix ByteMobile traffic

management platform in 2012


Compression techniques offer greatest user

experience benefits

• 55% of videos being optimized using compression

• 45% of videos being optimized using lossless techniques (e.g. just-in-time)

• Compression trades resolution for smooth delivery

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

w/out compression w/ compression0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

w/out compression w/ compression

% v

ide

os s

talle

d

Sta

lling tim

e (

s)

Avg. stalling duration per minute of video Daily video stalling

-59% -79%

17.6%

7.3%

40.8

8.4


Complementary benefit: bandwidth is made

available to more users

• Compression yields lower

bandwidth utilization per

video

• Allows network to support

more video users, while

improving video experience

1485 kbps

980 kbps

0.0

200.0

400.0

600.0

800.0

1000.0

1200.0

1400.0

1600.0

Lossless Lossy

Average video throughput

w/out compression w/ compression

Th

rou

gh

put (k

bp

s) -34%


Stalling reduction made the user experience so

good, we decided to make an advert

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pvmEzr7FXI





What’s next for the Vodacom network?

Address delivery delays caused by content

servers: media caching

Actively manage streaming video:

streaming policy control

Measure and score the user experience in order

to further improve it: user experience indexing

Vodacom

Stand E08D

Citrix ByteMobile

Stand B23

delivering a better data and video experience

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