EXFO solves video streaming problems for service providers

Industry-first solution brings new revenue opportunities, reduces churn, and differentiates

QUEBEC CITY, CANADA(03 Dec 2020)

EXFO Inc. (NASDAQ: EXFO, TSX: EXF), the communications industry’s test, monitoring and analytics experts, today launched Nova Active over-the-top (OTT) video monitoring, an industry-first solution allowing service providers to automatically detect and diagnose the root cause of video streaming problems as soon as they begin, and identify their origin—whether inside or outside of their networks. This is critical as video exceeds 65% of today’s network traffic, and will rise to over 90% in 5G networks by 2024.

OTT video streaming issues are the number one source of network-related customer churn[1], a multimillion dollar problem for operators[2]. In addition, consumers blame their video quality of experience (QoE) issues primarily on service providers[3], even though approximately half of all video quality issues originate outside of their networks and their control[4].

As a result, service providers have high volumes of churn and are unable to effectively monetize OTT video services and leverage QoE as an essential differentiator. In turn, revenue losses and higher customer acquisition costs increase as the provider’s reputation suffers—even if the issues stem from a customer device, a poor home WiFi network or a content provider’s data center issue.

EXFO’s Nova Active OTT video monitoring solution now gives mobile network operators, internet service providers and content delivery providers the means to detect, segment, classify and diagnose the root cause of video streaming problems as soon as they begin. For the first time, service providers will be able to pinpoint whether problems like freezing, buffering or lagging come from their network, the video platform, the user’s device, or a video provider like YouTube or Netflix.

“As we all increasingly rely on video streaming for working, learning and socializing, the quality of over-the-top video services has never been more important. But until now, service providers did not have access to technology allowing them to quickly identify and solve video streaming problems, whether on mobile devices, at work or at home,” said Abdelkrim Benamar, EXFO’s Vice President of Service Assurance, Systems and Services. “EXFO’s unique solution will give service providers the ability to quickly pinpoint the source of these problems, resolve video quality issues for users and capture the growing opportunity that video represents.”

“Legacy video monitoring solutions are generally expensive, compute-intensive and tailored to content delivery applications. The industry needs real-time video monitoring that helps service providers overcome network issues, where the majority of issues originate,” said Gorkem Yigit, Lead analyst for the Cloud Infrastructure Strategies and Media Platforms research programs, Analysys Mason. “EXFO’s approach is designed to address this with an innovative approach that provides visibility into video quality, network performance and how they relate, so providers can optimize user experience with what’s within their control.”

Nova Active OTT video monitoring is an integral part of the Nova Active monitoring solution and the Nova Adaptive Service Assurance platform. Using a patent-pending approach that measures video streaming experience without compromising user privacy, operators can precisely identify, classify and localize issues as they occur. The new solution avoids big data analytics and decryption delays, allowing operations teams to prioritize and take immediate action.

Key benefits of the solution include:
- Delivering end-to-end visibility of OTT services.
- Supporting operators’ goals for 5G evolution.
- Providing operators with the tools needed to manage the explosion in OTT video services.
- Provides an extensible platform for keeping pace with ever evolving OTT services.
- A 100% secure and private solution.
- Monitoring video quality in near real time (per second VQS generation).

More information about the solution is available on EXFO.com.

[1] Ipsos 2019 survey, Sapio Research consumer survey, Nov-2020
[2] Sapio Research consumer survey, Nov-2020, EXFO market analysis
[3] Idem.
[4] Source RCR / EXFO global video monitoring research, 2020-09.