What if you could see exactly how your streams perform for every user on every device in real-time? Understanding your audiences’ experiences is a vital step towards increasing viewer engagement, reducing customer churn, and ultimately keeping your operation profitable. System73’s Data Logistics Platform is designed to provide just this valuable real user monitoring (RUM) data on how your audiences are experiencing live streams, helping you to fine-tune your content delivery strategy and improve QoE for more satisfied customers.

How important is real user monitoring (RUM) data?

Today, user experience can make or break an application, website, or streaming platform. Digital users expect intuitive, high-quality experiences wherever and whenever they log on. In the world of VoD and live streaming, that translates into user interface, content variety and quality, and, of course, the technical quality of streams themselves. In such a high-demand environment, where even a minor buffering delay or a dip in stream quality can lead to frustration, real user monitoring can provide invaluable insights into viewer experience in order to improve and even surpass expectations.

Real user monitoring data allows content providers and distributors the chance to track user experiences in real-time in order to identify any pain points that could be hindering their streams. Armed with this data, content delivery teams can pinpoint slow load times in certain regions, higher latency or compatibility problems with particular devices, and respond in real-time during the stream to optimize performance and user satisfaction. In the long run, continuous monitoring and performance analysis can lead to less user churn and enhanced revenue for content providers. That’s where System73 comes in.  

Our approach: System73’s Edge Analytics

Our Data Logistics Platform provides all System73 customers with real user monitoring data in the form of our Edge Analytics dashboard. Edge Analytics offers an unprecedented level of visibility over the entire open internet, including the essential middle mile, which is where problems with live streams often occur. Edge Analytics works continuously to monitor all ASN routers, from CDNs to end devices, allowing content providers and distributors to pinpoint any issues and resolve them in real-time. 

With System73, this data is displayed intuitively on a state-of-the-art analytics dashboard, and is contextualized depending on the parameters selected by each customer. This real-time audience data includes average buffer health, filling ratio, rebuffering ratio, total plays, average audience, sessions by browser, operating system, and connection type. It, therefore, allows content providers to identify potential congestion and bottlenecks in the network and take immediate action to ensure fast and flawless quality of experience on users’ end devices.

Addressing the middle mile challenge

The middle mile is a vital yet sometimes overlooked component in content delivery strategies. For live content delivery, this is where the main issues affecting congestion and inefficiency occur, which can lead to buffering, latency, and poor user experience. Therefore, to ensure smooth, uninterrupted streams during times of critical viewing, such as live sports matches or music events, it is important to monitor the middle mile using data such as RUM to iron out any issues while or even before they happen. 

System73’s suite of services, available through our Data Logistics Platform, allow for a proactive approach to content delivery. Fed with our Analytics data, our Edge Intelligence solution utilizes AI-driven logistics to optimize live streaming by establishing centralized peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, ensuring the optimal bitrate for every user’s device, reducing dependence on traditional CDNs and edge servers, and scaling the network as needed. This solution has led to excellent results for current customers, including up to 94% of viewers consistently at the highest resolution for their device and up to 12% increase in viewing time. 

For more information on System73’s real user monitoring data through Edge Analytics or to speak to a member of our team about integrating System73 into your content delivery strategy, visit www.system73.com.

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