Webinar Archives

Video content is now the dominant form of global network traffic, and consumers are spending more time than ever watching videos on streaming services and social media platforms. When a customer subscribes to your internet service or mobile network, they are ultimately paying for a service that allows them to consume content. They expect to be able to watch videos at a high quality without interruption, and if you can’t deliver a great video streaming experience, it’s likely that you’ll end up with a dissatisfied customer.

It’s important for ISPs and operators to understand their customers’ real-life connectivity and quality of experience when they are consuming video content. Understanding the streaming experience starts with analyzing the right video KPIs — metrics that will help you measure and improve video performance on your network, as well as prioritize marketing and engineering efforts where you have excellent or poor performance.

Register for our December 9 webinar to learn about the latest industry research and best practices for accurately measuring the end-user’s experience in real-world conditions — so you can deliver world-class video streaming quality.

Which metrics should you care about?

Major video content providers and platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, Instagram and Facebook all use industry-standard metrics to ensure that their users are having good experiences. If you’re looking to improve your customers’ video streaming experience on your network, these are the video metrics that you should pay attention to:

1. Start delays

A start delay is the time from when the user hits “play” to when the video starts playing. Hitting play and having to wait a long time for the video to begin is not a good streaming experience.

2. Start failures

A start failure is when the user attempted to play a video but it failed to start. Failed playback usually leads to customer dissatisfaction with the streaming service or network provider.

3. Rebuffering ratio

This is the time spent stalling divided by the time spent playing back video. You can also look at stall proportion to understand the frequency of rebuffering events.

4. Average bitrate

This is the average media bitrate of the video played. In adaptive bitrate streaming, lower bitrate means lower quality video and a higher bitrate means a higher quality video, so you should be aiming to provide a higher average bitrate than your competitors.

Video Analytics in Speedtest Intelligence® captures each of these metrics and surfaces data from millions of video tests initiated in Speedtest® by consumers all over the world. To learn more about what you can do with these metrics, such as finding areas of opportunity for expansion, competitive benchmarking and promoting a superior video experience, join the webinar on Thursday, December 9.

The webinar will take place for APAC time zones at 11 a.m. GMT +8 (8:30 a.m. Mumbai, 10 a.m. Bangkok/Jakarta, 11 a.m. Manila/Singapore/Beijing/Kuala Lumpur, 12 p.m. Tokyo/Seoul, 2 p.m. Sydney), and a recording will be provided for registrants who can’t join the live presentation. Register now.

Billions of dollars in federal funding are being dispersed this summer as part of the United States government’s mission to expand broadband across America. State and local policymakers are currently tasked with ensuring that funding goes to broadband investments that will connect constituents to the speeds they need. This article highlights two instances where Ookla® data is uniquely positioned to help federal, state and local governments understand where constituents don’t have access to high-speed internet.

Register for our June 23 webinar to learn more about how accurate, up-to-date information about internet performance and accessibility can help you prioritize funding decisions and bridge the digital divide in your jurisdiction.

Addressing the digital divide in network access

This past year has made it increasingly clear that broadband is essential in our daily lives — students have needed high-speed internet to connect to the classroom, employees have needed to be able to connect to work remotely and sick people have needed access to broadband to use telehealth services. At the same time, broadband issues in both rural and urban communities have made the digital divide increasingly obvious. For those below or near the poverty line, a lack of equipment to get connected and a lack of financial resources acts as a barrier. In many areas there is a lack of adequate connectivity, impacting everyone, regardless of their economic circumstance.

Less populated, more rural areas of the U.S. tend to have less access to high-speed internet. Take Colorado, for example, where much of the greater Colorado Springs area has broadband speeds of 300+ Mbps. Yet many underserved areas exist in the more rural areas of Colorado. These underserved areas are clearly demonstrated by the red dots on the below map of Speedtest® measurements for all fixed operators via Android and iOS devices. This data reveals that many of the rural communities in Colorado don’t have access to the FCC minimum download speeds of 25 Mbps. By looking only at tests taken on devices that provide GPS location information, we can see the precise geographic boundaries of the digital divide, illustrated with real-world network performance data.

Connectivity problems exist in urban communities as well. The map below shows Cell Analytics™ data for Atlanta, Georgia. The red circles are locations of schools, the green circles are locations of libraries and the color gradient on the map indicates the signal strength in those locations. As you can see, many of the schools and libraries in Atlanta only have access to medium or weak signal strength, depending upon the carrier they have chosen. Within some neighborhoods, coverage quality is poor across all operators, leaving residents with no good option. Residents in urban communities under economic stress often depend on their phone to connect to the internet. This is especially true for students who rely on hotspots and tablets to connect to the classroom. Higher quality wireless service is critical when it comes to closing the homework gap in urban communities such as Atlanta.

The federal government aims to make big strides towards closing the gap in both rural and urban communities across the nation with the billions of dollars in broadband funding allocated in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act. While this new funding is welcome, it creates a question for policymakers around how to best use the budget to solve for digital equity. Decision makers often lack the data that they need to make smart infrastructure investments that will provide broadband access to the greatest number of people.

Using Ookla data for smarter spending

The webinar will show how policymakers can use Speedtest datasets to determine specific locations where constituents can’t access adequate broadband. Learn how we can help you allocate resources to areas that show a clear need for investment in broadband infrastructure.

Speedtest Intelligence® data can help answer questions like:

How is performance in a geographic area or for an internet service provider (ISP) trending over time?
How widespread are any changes (e.g., network improvements) impacting typical network performance in a given area?
Are minimum thresholds needed for remote work, education and telehealth being met in a given area?
How commonly does an ISP deliver a minimum level of service?
How does an ISP’s real-world network performance compare to their self-reported speeds and service levels?

To learn how to turn this data into actionable broadband policy, tune into the webinar on Wednesday, June 23 at 9 a.m. Pacific (12 p.m. Eastern). A recording will be provided for registrants who can’t make the live presentation.

Tag: Webinar

Four Video Experience Metrics ISPs and Mobile Operators Should Care About [Webinar]