LAS VEGAS — Most parts of the industry seem to think it will be a while before 4K, super-high-definition content is being streamed en masse. But network company Akamai says it can see consumer bandwidth increase positively toward that time.
“We’ve started seeing growth not only in traffic on the network but growth in individual bitrates,” Akamai product management and operations VP Michael Fay tells Beet.TV executive producer Andy Plesser in this video interview.
“2014, we saw about 2.3Mbits (per second) average bitrate being streamed, but we’re seeing a lot more audiences for a lot more devices growing to four and five Mbit streams, on the journey to a 4K experience, which might be a 12Mbit stream.”
Akamai traditionally places its network optimization technology on infrastructure nodes that handle traffic before it gets to consumers. Now it also hopes network device makers will place the tech on devices consumers use in the home, easing network congestion and making 4K transmission more likely.
Last month, the firm acquired online video quality optimization firm Octoshapes in another bid to transmit high-quality video.
We interviewed Fay at the NAB Show. Beet.TV’s coverage of the show was sponsored by Akamai. Please find more coverage from Las Vegas here.
