The hidden fatigue of streaming: how football puts Italian networks under stress
Bringing streaming matches to Italian screens is an expensive and complex technological undertaking, involving broadcasters, CDNs and telephone operators in a race against time to avoid congestion and disruption
Bringing streaming football to our televisions is an endeavour with much effort, out-of-control costs, and little glory. There is no glory because consumers expect the highest quality, always; they take it for granted. They don't want to miss any action and of course the video quality must be acceptable, high resolution and smooth. Behind all this, however, there is a chain of actors working in unison, even in real time, like firemen ready to put out any fire as it breaks out. Read a network congestion problem that can turn users into angry fans against the streaming provider or their telephone operator.
This was the outcome of an event in Rome, organised in November by Namex (a non-profit consortium that manages the interchange point between operators in Rome). A rare moment of confrontation between many of the actors in this supply chain.
The problems and solutions highlighted are numerous. Some are little known.
'In Sky, where I used to work, satellite television was a single video stream, received from a set-top box that was the same for everyone and very controlled,' says Vincenzo Roggio, head of distribution engineering at Dazn. 'With streaming, the scenario changes completely: there is no single format that can be read, interpreted, decoded by all devices,' because the signal has to reach any device connected to the internet. The content - football, in this case - is therefore produced, processed and converted into 'different formats' to cover as wide a variety of devices as possible. In addition, it must be encrypted to protect rights (against piracy).
After this step, the cdn, the content delivery networks, come into play. The metaphor is that of a large parcel distribution system. If Amazon had only one warehouse in Italy, it would never be able to serve people well across the boot. That is why we need many small 'warehouses' with goods, close to the customer. On the Internet they are called caches. Computers with lots of memory, present in the networks of all Italian operators and also at the interchange points. They contain files that are heavy and in great demand by users. They can be Windows updates or a popular game; films, TV series. Users receive them from the cache closest to them. Thus, higher quality and fewer problems can be guaranteed.
