Bottleneck Bandwidth and Round-trip propagation time (BBR) is a TCP congestion control algorithm that has gained significant market attention due to its ability to deliver higher throughput as reported by many content providers. In this post, we evaluate BBR (version 1) in the context of Verizon Media’s content delivery network (CDN) workloads, which delivers significant volumes (multiple Tbps) of software updates and streaming video, and quantify the benefits and impact on the traffic. We hope that such an evaluation at a large CDN will help other content providers to choose the right congestion control protocol for their traffic.

Video Quality of Experience and Rebuffers

In the early days of video streaming, viewers were willing to endure a frustrating playback experience to gain access to exclusive content. As the number of content providers sharing their content among multiple distributors has grown, Quality of Experience (QoE) has become vital to viewer retention.

Verizon Media makes every effort to ensure that your web services remain 100% available. As such, we wanted to inform you that the recent vulnerabilities associated with HTTP/2 on our network have been patched.

Today, the vast majority of live and streaming content is either 720p or 1080p. Despite the widespread availability of affordable 4K screens, broadcasters are still struggling with the complex challenges of producing and distributing 4K on an infrastructure designed to handle much lower bitrate HD streams.

Personalized viewing experiences at a 1:1 level are transforming the TV experience. Instead of one-size-fits-all, viewers get targeted and highly relevant advertising, tailored content, recommendations for new programs, and precise DRM/blackout management, all based on your viewers’ device type, location, history, demographics, and other data.