How CDNs Ensure Seamless Streaming for Global Sporting Events Like Copa América and the Olympics

CDNs ensure high-quality, seamless streaming for large-scale sporting events such as the 2024 Copa América, and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, efficiently managing traffic spikes and offering global coverage.

The Essential Role of CDNs for Live Sporting: With the start of the 2024 Copa América 2024 and the awaited 2024 Paris Olympic Games, the streaming technology behind these events becomes more relevant. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) play a significant role ensuring that millions of viewers worldwide have access to a seamless, high-quality viewing experience via streaming.

The Essential Role of CDNs for Live Sporting:
Improving Viewer Experience

According to Rubén Gutiérrez, Lead Product Manager at Cirion Technologies, one of the best-known advantages of CDNs is latency reduction for live streaming.  “If there is an event in a faraway geographic location, such as Brazil or France, the output signal is distributed globally through a distributed network interconnected to the Internet, which allows meeting viewers’ needs from servers close to their location,” said Gutiérrez. This means that, instead of managing streaming from the point of origin, Edge distribution servers deliver content over the Internet locally, significantly reducing delivery time and improving video and audio quality.

Scalability and Traffic Management

Sporting events usually raise significant traffic peaks, and it’s just here where CDNs prove their true value.  “TV channels can normally have 10,000 users simultaneously connected; however during an important match, that number can rise up to 200,000,” says Gutiérrez. CDNs allow efficient scalation to manage this sudden demand surge, distributing loads across multiple servers and ensuring good performance for all users.

Global Distribution and High Availability

Another key advantage is their global content distribution capacity.  Gutiérrez remarks that CDNs not only operate in a specific country but are able to stream events via internet to audiences around the globe. “A local sailing championship, for example, could be broadcast globally, allowing Peruvian citizens in Madrid to follow local sporting events in near real time,” he added.

Additionally, CDNs ensure high content availability, balancing loads between servers to prevent overloads and ensuring content seamless access for users.

Content Adaptability

CDNs have evolved significantly, adopting new streaming protocols such as HLS and DASH, which enable better content adaptability. “These protocols allow automatic system self-regulation, providing an improved user experience without manual intervention,” continued Gutiérrez.

For example, a user may be watching a soccer match on their mobile, using the network, which has very small bandwidth; but once at home they continue watching the same game from their home Wi-Fi network. Streaming will automatically detect the higher bandwidth available and increase consumption to gain better visibility.

The Essential Role of CDNs for Live Sporting:
Benefits for Retail and Cable Companies

Live streaming and VOD (Video On Demand) are primarily the types of content that companies require the most when hiring CDN services in Peru. These services enable effective scalability and high availability, critical for sporting events streaming and other contents where high traffic volumes are required. However, in the retail sector, companies are also using CDNs to deliver faster and more reliable online shopping experiences by quickly loading product images and videos.

Gutiérrez points out that “in the retail sector, many companies’ websites offer their products adding photos or videos on how to use said products; e.g., a microwave oven. The CDN ensures that this content is delivered quickly and seamlessly, improving user experience and increasing chances of conversion.”

Thanks to its widespread CDN network in Latin America and its global alliances, Cirion Technologies delivers an extensive and robust coverage, capable of handling large traffic volumes and ensuring high availability of content. “Cirion owns a broad CDN Network throughout Latin America and is strategically allied to companies such as Qwilt and Tata Communications, thus enhancing our network and global service capacity”, highlighted Gutiérrez.

This collaboration not only improves content delivery capacity. It also provides dedicated technical support during high-demand events.  “Our operators monitor and manage live events, ensuring that all technical aspects are working appropriately and responding quickly to any incidents,” he added.

With the Copa América and the Olympic Games ahead, TV channels and cable companies can benefit from CDNs to provide a superior user experience and efficient, reliable content distribution.