This lane is for trending content, only.
Why content you are “most likely” to view will be delivered faster.
Two growing trends in our mobile consumption patterns will put the squeeze on content delivery networks. First, we want high quality content with low latency. My episode of Sons of Anarchy on Netflix needs to be in HD and with no hiccups in performance. Second, our consumption of top content vs. long tail content is moving dramatically towards top content, limiting the diversity of what we view. The response of media companies (Facebook, Google, etc.) and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) is to preload top content either on the phone or at the network hub, cutting out CDN’s entirely from the most viewed content.
How did we get here?
When we start looking at the end to end latency in delivering content, we find that the majority of lag occurs from time on the network. An example search request on Google might look like:
- server fetch — 20ms
- network transmission — 600 ms
- render on client — 40ms
It turns out that finding the right content on the server side is usually super fast, and rendering it on your phone is quick, but time on the network is very expensive.
Media Companies — Loading Content in the Background
With all the improvements and optimizations that have been made thus far, avoiding the traditional network fetch is the last remaining optimization. Because of this, media companies (apps on your phone) are thinking of ways to push content to your phone before you view it. If you have watched the first 4 episodes of The Newsroom this season, you will probably watch the 5th. Data scientists are establishing predictive models on content consumption in an effort to push data to you that you will likely consume in the future.
However, this performance improvement comes with a hidden cost to the user in form of battery performance, storage and data costs. For example, if Netflix were to preload the first two minutes of four tv shows that you are likely to watch, you would be downloading ~ 240MB of data.
MNO’s are the new CDN
Similarly, Mobile Network Operators (MNO) are also trying to get content closer to the phone. The more technically savvy operators are caching popular content in their network and avoiding round trips to a Content Delivery Networks (Akamai) who traditionally provide these storage solutions. By cutting out this fetch, MNO’s are saving on speed and peering costs. Imagine that top articles, photos and Kim Kardashian’s latest attempt to break the internet will all be stored at Verizon or AT&T’s network edges in the future.
Looking forward
I expect that over the next few years, Mobile Network Operators will dramatically scale up their CDN services as a revenue source and will provide “Transparent Caching” where they skip fetching popular content and keep it in their networks.
Media companies will continue to walk the fine line around pre-fetching content and impacting the user’s data and storage. You can expect that photos of your Dear Aunt Sally will continue to come from a CDN, unless she happens to be a rockstar and a trending celebrity.
TL;DR
We are becoming a world that consumes top content and is less and less tolerant of slow experiences.
Media companies want to preload content to your mobile device.
Mobile network operators want to replace CDN’s by caching popular content in their networks.
