Is the consumer the broadcaster of tomorrow?

It’s an interesting thought that might force telcos to rethink how networks are built; will the increasingly influential trend of consumer created content demand greater upload speeds?

Download will of course always be more important than upload, we will always consume more content than we create, but with video messaging, social media and remote working becoming increasingly important aspects of our daily lives it is worth asking whether the upload metric, often ignored by the vast majority, will need some love in the future.

At IBC in Amsterdam this year, the opening keynote was made by YouTube. This is hardly unusual, it is one of the architects of the OTT revolution, though the focus on content creators was much more apparent than in previous years. Cécile Frot-Coutaz, the head of YouTube’s EMEA business, claimed the number of YouTube channels which generate more than $100,000 per annum has increased 30% from 2017 to 2018. The creation of content is becoming increasingly fragmented and straying outside the norms.

And this is not only visible on YouTube. Snapchat is a platform which was primarily designed to offer a platform for consumer content creation. In January, Facebook said there are now 500 million daily active users of the Stories feature on Instagram. Even the way we communicate is becoming more visual, with more consumers opting to video chat on the go.

Nexmo claims a 175% increase in regular live video usage in the last three years, with millennials leading the charge. 25% of young people use video chat on a daily basis. These trends will only increase as more banks, retail and healthcare companies offer live video services, and more of our lives revolve around the smartphone.

The video trends which we have discussed to great lengths over the last few years have primarily focused on the consumer downloading content. It is a one-way street of information, though this is not necessarily going to be the same in years to come. The big question is whether telcos are deploying networks which can compensate for the slight twist of strain. It is a nuance, but often the biggest challenges emerge from nuance.

A few weeks ago, the New England Patriots opened their Super Bowl LIII against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Over the course of this game, 11.58 TB of data traversed across the wifi network. The peak spike for the network was during the Super Bowl LIII banner reveal, with 34,982 concurrent users and 23.24 Gbps network utilisation. The breakdown of download and upload has not been revealed, though the team prepared themselves for an increase in sharing.

“The home opener for a Super Bowl champion is special,” said Fred Kirsch, VP of Content for the New England Patriots and Kraft Sports Productions.

“The team unveils its championship banner and every fan in the stadium wants to capture that moment along with all the other festivities leading up to it. We’ve been lucky enough to have done this before and saw huge spikes in social sharing during this game so our IT department, along with Extreme Networks, made sure we were prepared.

“Man, are we glad we did. At more than one terabyte, social sharing volume during the Super Bowl LIII banner unveiling at Gillette Stadium represents the highest data throughput rate of any moment during any sporting event.”

It might be a trend which irritates some technophobes and traditionalists, but social media is a genre for sharing. It started with the written word, users simply penning their thoughts, moved into sharing of existing content, and now it is increasingly becoming defined by the user creating and sharing their own content.

This creates a new dynamic and a new consideration for those who are deploying networks. Experience is often defined by download speed or latency, however there are will be an increasing number of people who will pay attention to the upload speeds moving forward.

Another interesting element for the upload speed metric will be the fast-developing gaming ecosystem. Download speeds are all well and good, but if you are playing a game which requires you to interact with other players online, uploads speeds are just as important. They do not need to be as high as download speeds, but there do need to be continued improvements to ensure connectivity meets the demands of gaming performance.

For example, Xbox currently suggests a consistent 3 Mbps download and 0.5 Mbps upload speeds for minimally acceptable performance. PS4 suggests 3 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload, as does Nintendo Switch. For PC gaming, download speeds are suggested at 3-6 Mbps, while upload speeds are 0.75–1 Mbps.

These speeds might be achievable in the home, but with the cloud gaming segment growing, these titles can be taken onto multiple screens and onto different networks. Will upload speeds offer a consistent and reliable experience on the mobile networks which are so consistently put under strain.

All of these factors don’t even take into account the increasingly complex or immersive content which will emerge over the next few years. Or the more advanced cameras which smartphone manufacturers are putting on their devices. More tech means more data which needs to be uploaded.

We are all narcissists deep down, craving for attention. Social media is allowing us to do this by sharing video content of our own experiences, and now the networks will have to deliver on the promise.