Gone in 60 Seconds? The Dilemma of IP Video Surfing

A popular habit of the modern broadband consumer is to bounce from video to video until they land on a specific clip that catches their attention. It is like having a one-million channel TV remote! This phenomenon is the bane of the online advertising world since advertisers are desperate to hold the viewer's attention long enough to imprint their brand messages. This point was recently highlighted in a humorous blog on the Advertising Age website titled "Why YouTube Viewers have Attention Deficit Disorder and How to Stop It". The article included research indicating 35% of videos are abandoned within 30 seconds and a full 50% are abandoned after 90 seconds.

Mobile operators are especially impacted by this video surfing behavior as upwards of 60 - 70% of mobile broadband traffic is video. Every abandoned video wastes valuable radio network bandwidth because video servers and players "pre-buffer" content well ahead of the actual playing rate, so the network must allocate this capacity whether it is used or not. In fixed broadband networks this isn't such a big deal, but in mobile networks the cost per megabit delivered (over the air) is proportionately much higher. Every abandoned video may result in 30% or more wasted transport bandwidth. As we explained in a previous post on video optimization, mobile operators have several tools to alleviate this problem - including RAN-based content optimization. Long-term usage trends may also help here as more commercial entertainment content (TV shows, webisodes, movies, music...) moves to the web, average viewing times increase, and abandonment rates decrease.