According to the United States Census Bureau, some 20% of the population in the U.S. lives in rural areas. Despite the fact that access to high-speed broadband networks has improved over recent years, rural viewers still experience poor Quality of Experience (QoE) when it comes to live streaming, particularly live sports streaming. This means the problem stems from elsewhere. As national and college sports leagues increasingly move onto subscription streaming platforms, content publishers and distributors must ensure they are serving these rural viewers with high quality content —meaning few to zero buffering events, fast start times, high resolution, etc.— in order to avoid churn caused by poor QoE, a hugely important metric for stakeholders.

In this article, we take a closer look at why rural viewers are experiencing such low quality live streams, and how System73 is setting the standard for live streaming for rural viewers, by mitigating churn in underserved regions, increasing viewer satisfaction and even optimizing revenue for content publishers and distributors.

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The shortcomings of traditional CDNs for rural viewers

Traditional content delivery networks (CDNs) are used by streaming services to deliver content to millions of viewers connected to the stream. However, their design caters primarily to urban areas, which benefit from strategically placed caches and cloud points, while rural viewers are left at a disadvantage as they are further away from this vital infrastructure. Given that most performance metrics are taken from these urban cloud points, the poor quality of experience suffered by rural viewers often goes unnoticed. This lack of visibility results in rural viewers dealing with buffering events, poor video quality, and latency during live streams, undermining the value of their subscriptions. In reality, rural viewers are often even more engaged than urban viewers in college sports teams, making them an important demographic to care for. 

Live streaming events, such as sports games, and spikes in traffic exacerbate these challenges. Major league sports games can increase network traffic by 50% or more, which places a huge strain on bandwidth. In rural areas, this load is often borne by fewer servers, unable to spread the traffic over a larger infrastructure. Although additional bandwidth can sometimes be purchased to handle peak demand, this requires accurate forecasting of traffic spikes and can incur significant costs, which is unsustainable for smaller streaming services. As more events move towards a subscription-based platform model, it is becoming clear that traditional CDN models fail to meet the needs and expectations of rural viewers. 
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System73’s solution for live streaming for rural viewers

At System73, we have developed a reliable and cost-effective solution to live streaming for rural viewers and hard-to-reach areas. We have experienced huge success in delivering high-traffic events, such as the UEFA Champions League Final when we were able to maintain a high QoE even for rural viewers in hard-to-reach areas of Peru. Our solution, Edge Intelligence, works by leveraging AI-driven logistics and peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to create centrally orchestrated broadcast trees that optimize content delivery routes, ensuring high-quality streaming even in areas with limited CDN coverage. 

This approach reduces the reliance of live streams on traditional CDNs by offloading up to 80% of streaming traffic onto the P2P network, minimizing congestion and buffering events. As a result, rural viewers experience improved QoE with lower latency and higher resolution streams. What’s more, Edge Intelligence's scalability allows it to support large-scale, high-demand events —the more viewers connected to the stream, the stronger the network— ensuring that all viewers, regardless of location, receive consistent and reliable streaming services. 

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Successfully delivering the UEFA Champions League Final to rural viewers

Our solution, Edge Intelligence, proved to be a game-changer for delivering high-quality live streams even in challenging environments. We successfully served rural viewers in Latin America watching the live UEFA Champions League Final in 2024. Regions such as Peru, where limited infrastructure has traditionally hindered high-quality streaming, benefited greatly from our ability to deliver uninterrupted, high-resolution content without relying heavily on traditional CDN infrastructure. Our peer-to-peer (P2P) technology ensured 90% of viewers enjoyed the highest bitrate available for their devices, delivering an exceptional viewing experience for one of the world’s most anticipated sporting events.

This achievement was made even more of a success given that we accomplished it with no prior planning or additional resource allocation. Edge Intelligence dynamically handled significant traffic surges, scaling elastically to meet demand and ensure uninterrupted service. We not only provided reliable QoE but also saved our customers 65% on delivery costs —an unparalleled cost-efficiency in the content delivery market. This event, among many others, demonstrates how System73 is setting the standard for live streaming for rural viewers in underserved regions, providing the same high-quality viewing experiences as those given to urban audiences. 

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For more information about System73, Edge Intelligence, or to book a call with our team, visit system73.com.

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