Earlier this year, Sandvine’s Global Internet Phenomena Reports revealed that Netflix video accounted for 35% of peak evening traffic on North American fixed access networks and although only roughly 10% of total Netflix traffic was encrypted, it is expected to grow rapidly in the near future. As Netflix and other video services transition towards encrypting all of their traffic, it is vital for CSPs to have a business intelligence solution that can continue to provide advanced QoE metrics in order to ensure their subscribers have a positive experience when streaming video.

Unlike competing business intelligence solutions that apply a “one solution fits all video providers” approach to measuring encrypted video, Sandvine has chosen to develop unique recognition algorithms for each major encrypted video streaming service because key characteristics such as bitrates and buffering strategy can vary significantly between providers. Sandvine’s approach uses a combination of machine learning and heuristics to ensure that CSPs are able to have confidence in the accuracy of their encrypted video metrics, and will be able to maintain the same level of insight as more streaming services begin encrypting their traffic.

Alongside the availability of these new encrypted video metrics, Sandvine is adding a brand new way to visualize these metrics in Network Analytics using a feature called FlexPanels. FlexPanels will allow CSPs to build custom dashboards using the network data that exists inside Network Analytics, while also supporting external data sources in order to provide complimentary visualizations. Additionally, any dashboard that is created using the FlexPanels feature can easily be shared throughout a CSPs organization, opening up the opportunity for executives to continually keep track of important KPIs, or operations teams to track major network events.

“Sandvine expects that 80% of all network traffic will soon be encrypted, and with video being the majority of traffic on most networks, it is important that service providers are accurately measuring how encrypted video is impacting their network and is being perceived by subscribers,” said Don Bowman, CTO, Sandvine. “By taking the approach of using machine learning and heuristics to develop recognition for each encrypted video provider, Sandvine is helping to ensure that operators can continue to understand the numerous underlying factors that can impact a subscriber’s experience when streaming video in an encrypted world.”