A live stream lives or dies on the delivery layer. This category tracks multi-CDN strategy, edge compute, origin caching, HTTP/3 and QUIC, low-latency HLS and DASH, and the performance monitoring tools that catch problems before viewers do.
Fastly's Threat Insights Report indicates that 49% of all web traffic consists of bots, with 99% of these bots being unwanted. The report suggests that organizations need to evolve their bot strategy to manage security and costs more effectively. The article provides insights into the nature of bot traffic on the web.
Fastly discusses Media over QUIC (MoQ) as a technology aiming to deliver real-time media with both low latency and scalability. The article posits that MoQ could achieve this by replacing traditional streaming segments with a more efficient delivery model. This technical development is presented as a potential solution to a long-standing challenge in streaming.
The article reviews updates to Google Media CDN over the past year, including a reported tripling of delivery capacity since early 2025 by combining Media CDN and YouTube capacity, with a focus on handling live-streaming traffic spikes. Google added caching/routing options such as Flexible Shielding with new shield regions (South Africa, Middle East, U.S.), expanded origin compatibility (HEAD support, larger max segment size, multi-part range requests), and introduced monthly savings plans for more predictable costs. It also launched a Monitoring as a Service (MaaS) offering aimed at providing real-time, event-focused operational visibility from origin to end-user metrics.
Fastly announced the redesign of its Control Panel homepage. The update provides users with a centralized, dynamic view to access actionable insights on performance, security, account health, and spend alerts.
Wowza outlines Media over QUIC (MoQ), an in-development IETF publish/subscribe streaming protocol built on QUIC/WebTransport that targets sub-second live video delivery at large scale, positioning it as a potential single protocol spanning ingest and distribution. The article compares MoQ with RTMP, HLS/DASH (including low-latency variants), and WebRTC, and highlights MoQ’s relay-based fan-out, tracks/groups/objects data model, and browser support via WebTransport/WebCodecs. It also notes MoQ’s current limitations, including evolving drafts, interoperability/tooling gaps, limited hardware encoder support, and the need for hybrid fallback delivery, and states that Wowza has joined the OpenMOQ consortium to help advance implementations and testing.
Fastly has identified CVE-2026-23869 as a high-severity denial of service vulnerability affecting React Server Components. The company is providing information on the impacts, affected versions, and solutions for immediate protection, including a virtual patch.
Fastly advocates for the use of technical precision over indiscriminate IP blocking as a method to combat piracy. The company states this approach helps protect an open internet without causing collateral damage.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) describes its development work on “Oracle Video @ Edge” (OVE), a multi-tenant live and premium video delivery service using Media over QUIC (MoQ) to address peak-concurrency live event delivery and “thundering herd” behavior. The architecture includes multi-protocol ingest (e.g., HLS over CMAF and SRT) normalized into MoQ object streams, a cloud-native relay fleet for regional fanout/autoscaling, and integrated telemetry aligned with standards like CMCD/CMSD, with edge egress that can convert MoQ back into CMAF segments and dynamically generated HLS manifests. The post positions OVE as moving from beta toward general availability, with stated next steps including broader CDN/ISP interconnects, player ecosystem support, capacity modeling, dynamic ad delivery, and DRM-based content protection.
AWS documentation describes Amazon CloudFront as a global CDN that accelerates delivery of static and dynamic content via edge locations, retrieving uncached objects from defined origins. It outlines core configuration concepts such as CloudFront distributions, origin options (including Amazon S3 and AWS Elemental MediaPackage), caching/expiration controls, and a choice between standard distributions and multi-tenant distributions for SaaS use cases. The page also summarizes CloudFront’s usage-based pricing model centered on data transfer out and request volume, with origin-to-CloudFront transfer free when using AWS origins.
This NAB Show 2026 preview outlines how IP-based and cloud-distributed media operations are increasing operational exposure for broadcasters and streaming platforms, elevating monitoring, security, and resilience to executive-level priorities. Sources from TAG Video Systems, Telestream, Broadpeak, the RIST Forum, Veset, and Tuxera highlight challenges including end-to-end visibility across layered IP networks, piracy/credential abuse during high-value live events, disaster recovery via cloud playout, and emerging content authenticity needs tied to synthetic media and provenance tools.
A Google Research paper presented at USENIX NSDI 2023 describes HALP, a heuristic-aided machine learning eviction policy for YouTube’s CDN DRAM cache aimed at improving cache efficiency with low CPU overhead. The authors report HALP has been running in YouTube CDN production since early 2022, reducing peak byte miss by an average of 9.1% with about 1.8% CPU overhead, and introduces an “impact distribution analysis” method to measure deployment impact under production noise.
Satellite broadcasting is evolving into a high-capacity distribution network, integrating with telecom services and leveraging advanced digital media formats like 8K to bridge the digital divide. It maintains its value for Direct-to-Home (DTH) in remote regions and is adopting hybrid models combining broadcast signals with internet connectivity for interactive features and Push VOD. Modern satellite systems are also being integrated into Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) for pre-positioning content at the edge and ensuring high-quality UHD/HDR delivery.
Fastly announced new Compute pricing based only on requests and vCPU usage, designed to reduce costs and carbon footprint through efficient code. The service is available for self-purchase and includes free tiers. This update aims to incentivize more efficient software deployment on their edge platform.
The article discusses BISS-CA as a solution for securing live sports contribution feeds. It highlights that BISS-CA provides open and interoperable conditional access to prevent piracy at the source.
Bitmovin and Cloudflare demonstrated Media over QUIC (MoQ) playback at NAB 2026, showcasing an emerging IETF standard for sub-second latency live streaming at scale. Bitmovin integrated MoQ into its Player Web X as an isolated plugin, while Cloudflare deployed open-source MoQ relays across its global network, emphasizing an open infrastructure approach for the new standard.
Broadpeak summarizes a discussion with JioStar CTO Akash Saxena on engineering and operating live cricket streaming in India at very high concurrency, citing IPL peaks of 32M (2023), 63M (2024), and 55M (2025) streams and planning scenarios approaching 100M concurrent viewers. The article highlights a hybrid delivery approach combining public cloud CDNs with infrastructure deployed within telecom networks, along with in-house SSAI at scale, anti-piracy enforcement, and increasing operational automation for live-event reliability.
This article provides a detailed technical explanation of MPEG-DASH, an ISO-ratified adaptive bitrate streaming protocol, covering its architecture, how it delivers adaptive bitrate video, supported codecs, DRM via CENC, and comparisons with HLS. It also highlights Ant Media Server's implementation of LL-DASH via CMAF, multi-protocol ingest, and scaling capabilities for various use cases.
Red5 describes progress on its Media over QUIC (MOQ) implementation and says it plans to go live on Red5 Cloud with globally distributed MOQ relays running on CacheFly. The post also introduces a proposed new live media delivery approach called MOCK (Media Over Conjectural Kinetics), which conceptually models media fragments as "kinetic particles" and uses predictive reconstruction (including GPU-accelerated inference via NVIDIA CUDA) to target extremely low latency and reduced buffering behavior. Red5 says it is exploring how MOCK could integrate alongside existing MOQ and WebRTC workflows and intends to release early research/implementation under an Apache 2 license.
A consortium including Neutral Wireless and broadcasters such as BBC, France Télévisions, and RAI is urging mobile network operators to enable interoperable, cross-network control of 5G performance for live broadcast production. The group calls for implementation of CAMARA Quality on Demand (QoD) and QoS Profiles APIs via the GSMA Open Gateway/GMSA Fusion initiatives to allow dynamic prioritization of critical video, audio, and control flows in congested environments. Target availability is requested beginning in the UK (Q4 2026), followed by Italy, France, the Netherlands, and the USA, with pilots planned after go-live dates and an IBC showcase slated for September.
The article describes a UK-focused overhead network concept using a linked array of tethered high-altitude aerostats with antennas to extend 5G broadcast coverage and enable rapid deployment of private 5G networks for live production, including in low-coverage areas. After eight months of proof-of-concept trials, the project has received government-level planning approval and is slated to go live later this year, with interest from outside broadcast teams for summer live events.
The article summarizes an SVTA draft standard, CMSD-MQA (Common Media Server Data for Media Quality Assessment), which defines how encoder-generated video/audio quality scores (e.g., VMAF, PSNR, SSIM and composite MQA-VIDEO/MQA-AUDIO) can be carried through the live streaming delivery chain as standardized metadata via CMSD/CMCD headers and, where needed, H.264/H.265 SEI messages. Workshop demos from Norsk and Touchstream showed per-segment quality-aware monitoring and origin switching between redundant live pipelines based on these scores, plus use cases spanning contribution selection, manifest signaling, origin-shield routing, player-side auditing (including ad quality), and analytics aggregation. Adoption is described as early, with Norsk/id3as and AWS Elemental MediaLive/MediaPackage v2 cited as early adopters and broader uptake expected after formal SVTA publication.
Comcast says its DOCSIS 4.0 rollout is now available to “millions” of homes, expanding beyond the ~1 million homes passed and ~10 markets cited in 2024, as it upgrades its HFC footprint with digital nodes and Full Duplex amplifiers. Executives also described AI-enabled network monitoring using Broadcom silicon that they say improves impairment detection accuracy and reduces repair minutes and trouble calls, alongside continued deployment of vCMTS across HFC and FTTP options and an edge AI initiative with Nvidia.
The article promotes BlazingCDN's Video CDN offering for video streaming workloads, including VOD, OTT, and broadcast delivery. It claims the service enables high-quality, low-latency video delivery to global audiences and positions it as an enterprise-grade solution.
Synamedia introduced ContentArmor Edge Watermarking, a forensic watermarking solution that inserts session-specific watermarks directly into the compressed stream at the CDN edge to help detect and disrupt piracy. The company claims the approach halves watermark insertion and extraction times versus A/B watermarking and reduces origin-to-edge and cache bandwidth, targeting an end-to-end disruption time of under five minutes. The solution is positioned as avoiding A/B dual-asset caching by encoding once at the headend and inserting unique identifiers per session on the fly at the edge despite constraints like limited CPU and lack of DRM keys on edge servers.
CableLabs and Zoom completed a pilot validating CableLabs' Quality by Design (QbD) framework, which enables broadband networks and applications to exchange real-time performance telemetry (latency, jitter, packet loss) to identify and resolve quality issues automatically. The pilot incorporated Zoom's "Client as a Sensor" capability (introduced in Zoom 6.1.0) to feed application-level metrics into QbD, and CableLabs plans a next phase with Meta to extend experience measurement to applications that cannot share real-time telemetry via network monitoring and scoring methods.
Aurora Networks and Huber+Suhner are collaborating to support Vodafone Germany in upgrading its cable network using Distributed Access Architecture, including Remote PHY devices and a virtual CMTS. The project is positioned to enable multi-gigabit services and expand Vodafone’s HFC network by shifting processing closer to end users and using COTS server-based vCCAP/QAM video capabilities for centralized provisioning and monitoring.
Fastly has been recognized as a Leader in the 2026 Forrester Wave™ for Edge Development Platforms. The company received perfect scores for performance and developer experience in the report.
Synamedia and Spanish consultancy/systems integrator MoMe launched a streaming-optimised CDN service in Spain, built on Synamedia Fluid EdgeCDN and offered via MoMe subsidiary Argos Technology Services. The companies say the service is designed to meet Spain/EU regulatory, operational, and performance requirements, with deployment across eight Spanish data centres and edge locations aimed at low-latency delivery. MoMe also plans to offer multi-CDN delivery outside Spain, including integration with Synamedia Quortex Switch.
Fastly is showcasing new advancements in application security and bot management at the RSAC 2026 conference. These advancements include the Adaptive Threat Engine and ATO Deception, designed to help organizations protect against rising and increasingly sophisticated bot traffic.
LTN expanded its technology partnership with Harmonic to offer an integrated IP-based channel distribution solution aimed at helping broadcasters and networks migrate away from satellite distribution amid expected FCC-driven C-band changes. The combined offering integrates Harmonic’s VOS360 Media SaaS and XOS Advanced Media Processor with LTN’s global IP network to support IP delivery to MVPDs, vMVPDs, and local stations, including workflows for video processing, targeted ad insertion, and channel deployment. The companies plan to demonstrate updated IP transport stream distribution and content customization workflows at NAB Show 2026.
Vecima Networks detailed its expanded role in Charter Communications’ multi-phase HFC network upgrade, including planned deployments of Vecima’s DOCSIS 4.0 remote PHY devices (Entra ERM422) and expanded use of its remote OLTs (SF-4X) supporting both 10G-EPON and 50G ITU PON. Charter’s phased plan moves from 1.2GHz high-split upgrades to distributed access architecture with virtual CMTS, culminating in DOCSIS 4.0 and 1.8GHz upgrades intended to enable multi-gig downstream and at least 1 Gbit/s upstream across its footprint. Charter expects the upgrade to be 50% complete by end of 2026, and has indicated it will fast-track DOCSIS 4.0 in Cox territories post-merger close, while other suppliers (e.g., Harmonic) are also participating.
Caretta Research, in partnership with Zixi, released a white paper reporting that broadcasters and sports organizations are shifting live video distribution and contribution from satellite and fibre toward IP- and cloud-based workflows. The report cites drivers including US C-band satellite spectrum reallocation and broader cost and streaming-demand pressures, and highlights use cases such as scaling live sports production, adding camera angles, and distributing to more affiliates and platforms with monitoring/orchestration tools.
Fastly announced an upcoming webinar featuring Michael Breed to discuss the importance of speed, precision, and performance in technology, drawing parallels from golf. The webinar will focus on how repeatable mechanics and low latency contribute to elite performance. This event highlights Fastly's expertise in delivery and performance aspects relevant to streaming.
Fastly describes an integration/partnership with Bronto to provide real-time observability for CDN telemetry during high-traffic live events, positioning it as a way to reduce incident triage time from minutes to seconds. The article claims sub-second search over terabytes of CDN logs (e.g., ~25ms for 1TB; up to ~2.5 seconds for 100TB) plus up to 12 months of hot data retention for post-event analysis and capacity planning, and notes AI-assisted investigation and dashboard generation features.
Broadpeak outlines Media over QUIC (MoQ), an IETF-standardizing protocol stack for low-latency live media delivery over QUIC/WebTransport that uses a publish/subscribe model and frame-level (non-segmented) transport rather than HLS/DASH-style ABR segments. The article describes a proposed transition approach that keeps existing HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) infrastructure while adding a cache-level HAS-to-MoQ relay to serve both HAS and MoQ simultaneously, and notes early experimentation on CPU and QoE impacts with more results planned for an upcoming white paper. Broadpeak also references an NAB Show 2026 live demonstration of MoQ and ongoing exploration of WebTransport over HTTP/2 in this architecture.
Fastly announced a solution for real-time CDN monitoring for live events using its platform in conjunction with Bronto. This integration allows for sub-second log queries, 12 months of log retention, and claims to reduce logging costs by 50%. The feature is designed to enhance monitoring capabilities for time-sensitive live streaming content.
A Value Market Research report projects the global content delivery network (CDN) market to grow from USD 32.57B (2025) and USD 36.20B (2026) to USD 84.40B by 2034 (11.16% CAGR). The report states North America held the largest share (31.65% in 2024) while Asia-Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing region, and notes that media and entertainment represented over 42.75% of revenue in 2024 with video streaming the largest offering segment. It also highlights trends including multi-cloud adoption, AI/ML-enabled optimization, edge computing for real-time processing, and increased security requirements (e.g., DDoS protection and WAF) as factors influencing CDN demand.
LTN and Appear announced a collaboration to integrate Appear’s X Platform encoding/decoding with LTN’s fully managed global IP video transport network for live event contribution and distribution. The combined offering targets broadcasters, sports leagues, OTT platforms, and service providers, supporting IP-native workflows including REMI/centralized production and distribution to linear, OTT, and FAST endpoints with added services such as conditional access, rights management, and metadata enrichment.
This article discusses how CMCD v2 aims to standardize OTT telemetry data, which has historically been fragmented across various platforms. The specification seeks to enable more unified insights into streaming performance for providers. The primary focus is on the technical implications of CMCD v2 for data collection and analysis.
Broadpeak announced it will showcase new and enhanced live streaming capabilities at NAB Show 2026, including Multiview viewing experiences, Media over QUIC (MoQ) for lower-latency live delivery, and upgrades to its video CDN for large-scale live events. The company also highlighted expanded advertising features (including BannersIn2 formats and Click2Cart) and real-time anti-piracy capabilities integrated into its CDN, plus AI-powered subtitling and dubbing.
LTN and MediaKind announced a strategic partnership to integrate MediaKind’s MK.IO Beam solutions into the LTN Network to accelerate IP-based video contribution and distribution deployments. The integration adds multicast and multipath delivery to the edge with dual redundant IP connections, automated last-mile path steering, and managed transport for compressed video streams. It also enables on-prem edge processing functions such as transcoding and multiplexing to support regional, affiliate, and cable headend requirements as operators transition away from satellite distribution.
The post states that Google Cloud will increase egress pricing effective May 1, 2026 for CDN Interconnect, Direct Peering, and Carrier Peering across North America ($0.04 to $0.08/GiB), Europe ($0.05 to $0.08/GiB), and Asia ($0.06 to $0.085/GiB). It advises customers to review billing reports and update budget projections because the change will appear on May invoices.
Spanish consultancy and systems integrator MoMe launched a streaming-optimised CDNaaS in Spain using Synamedia’s Fluid EdgeCDN, positioned as the country’s first CDN service built specifically for video streaming. The deployment spans eight data centres in Spain with edge locations aimed at lowering latency, adding end-to-end QoS/QoE monitoring, and supporting integration of ingest, encoding, and packaging closer to the edge. The service will be offered via MoMe subsidiary Argos Technology Services, with multi-CDN services outside Spain including integration with Synamedia’s Quortex Switch.
Akamai informed customers and partners that it will introduce interim surcharges and pricing adjustments on contract renewals, citing sharp increases in server component and energy costs since late 2025. The company says it will apply a 3% surcharge effective April 1, 2026, and up to a 10% price adjustment on renewals, alongside internal cost-mitigation efforts such as migrating workloads to Akamai Cloud. The article frames the move as part of broader infrastructure market inflation, noting similar price increases from providers like Hetzner and OVHcloud.
Synamedia and Spanish consultancy/systems integrator MoMe announced the launch of a streaming-optimised CDN-as-a-service in Spain, powered by Synamedia Fluid EdgeCDN and operated on Spanish infrastructure. The service is deployed across eight data centers in Spain and is positioned to provide broadcasters and OTT platforms with end-to-end delivery visibility, QoS/QoE monitoring, and low-latency performance via edge locations close to end users. MoMe plans to offer the service through its subsidiary Argos Technology Services and to provide multi-CDN delivery outside Spain via integration with Synamedia Quortex Switch.
Broadpeak has launched a Multiview solution that lets broadcasters, streaming platforms, and telecom operators deliver multiple live sports feeds on a single screen more efficiently. The system combines video feeds at the packager level after encoding, reducing encoder processing requirements and eliminating the need for special multiview capabilities on end-user devices, while supporting flexible layouts and lower costs. The company will showcase the product at NAB Show 2026.
Fastly announced a major expansion of Fastly Object Storage, adding five new regions across North America, Europe/UK, and Asia-Pacific to complement its existing footprint. The service is positioned to deliver lower-latency, egress-fee-free storage closer to end users, with support for regional redundancy and predictable pricing. Fastly also highlights its On-Demand Migration feature to enable incremental, usage-based migration of large object repositories such as media libraries from other providers.
The article summarizes key technical themes from the Mile High Video 2026 conference, highlighting progress in Media-over-QUIC (MoQ), real-time QoE telemetry (CMCDv2, MQA), AI-driven encoding and machine-to-machine video, and new ad formats and insertion standards. It also covers infrastructure advances such as Enhanced RTMP, Netflix’s REaP architecture, AV2 plus custom encoding silicon, and authenticity standards like C2PA for content provenance. The piece positions modern streaming architectures as increasingly data-driven, modular, and security-focused, with vendors like Wowza planning product roadmaps around these developments.
The post highlights that Appear's X platform is being used by NBC Sports to support live delivery of Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics coverage, transporting live streams from Italy to NBC Sports' Broadcast Center in Stamford, Connecticut for U.S. distribution. It notes that the Stamford Broadcast Operations Center functions as a 24/7 hub for delivery, production, and distribution of the live content during the Games.
The article reports that the global content delivery network (CDN) market, valued at approximately US$19.4 billion in 2024, is projected to reach about US$52.8 billion by 2033, reflecting an 11.8% CAGR from 2025 to 2033. Growth is attributed to rising video streaming, online gaming, e-commerce, 5G, and edge computing, with key developments from major providers including Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly, AWS (CloudFront), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud expanding capacity, security, and edge capabilities. North America currently leads with a 37% market share, followed by Europe and Asia Pacific.
