New Mesh Delivery release offers easier cross-device integration and smaller footprint on low-end hardware

With streaming services more popular than ever and audience sizes growing all the time, video providers are continually looking for ways to optimize their live and on-demand content delivery in ways that go beyond traditional CDN services. That’s why, in addition to our global content delivery network with over 170 Tbps of capacity, Lumen also offers Mesh Delivery.

Lumen^® Mesh Delivery uses hybrid peer-to-peer technology to dynamically retrieve video content from the most efficient source—either the CDN or a mesh network of user devices, helping to decongest the network and enhance the streaming experience as audiences grow.

Broadcasters must be present on the devices their audiences use, making portability of Mesh Delivery key. As viewing time is increasingly dominated by “big screen” devices (76% of total*) – Smart TVs, connected TVs (STBs, TV sticks) and gaming consoles – we recently took the time to rewrite our hybrid native-JavaScript code base in C++. This is designed to make the solution optimized for execution on many operating systems and portable to virtually any platform on the market.

In addition, we always aim to have as little a footprint as possible on the device’s hardware – RAM, CPU, and storage – to achieve both high levels of CDN offload and high quality of experience. This is particularly challenging on low-end devices.

The new version of Lumen Mesh Delivery for native devices fulfils both of these aims and more.

Reduced footprint

We have designed Mesh Delivery to be unintrusive and lightweight on user devices. Compared to devices not using Mesh:

• Additional battery usage over 5 minutes: ~0.9%**
• RAM usage: ~17 MB
• Storage usage: total bundle 14-17 MB***, comparable to other native SDKs with similar source code size

Compared to previous versions of Mesh Delivery, this translates to 2x less average CPU use, 4x less average RAM usage, as well as low-end device hardware compatibility (e.g. 4 cores CPU, 1 GB RAM).

QoS and integration advantages

This release also comes with other benefits, including:

• Potential increase in CDN offload: +5-20%
• Improved reaction to network speed changes
• Smoother integration with ABR decisions
• Easier SDK integration thanks to 10x fewer lines of source code (new integration requires just one class and ~30 SLOC, and it is available for the latest two major ExoPlayer versions)
• Additional client-side debugging tools with real-time information like Mesh & CDN volume, offload, connected peers, peer-to-peer cache size, video latency, bandwidth, current video track, etc.

And there is more to come! While iOS and Android are available today, we also plan to support platforms like Roku, PlayStation, Xbox and Linux set-top boxes in the future.

To learn more about how Lumen Mesh Delivery or other solutions help improve the performance, security, and reliability of your applications, reach out to content-delivery@lumen.com.

*Conviva, “State of Streaming Q4 2021”
**Given 4500mAh battery, 3.8V: continuous power consumption 0.8 – 2W, depending on the device
***Exact size depends on the operating system

This content is provided for informational purposes only and may require additional research and substantiation by the end user. In addition, the information is provided “as is” without any warranty or condition of any kind, either express or implied. Use of this information is at the end user’s own risk. Lumen does not warrant that the information will meet the end user’s requirements or that the implementation or usage of this information will result in the desired outcome of the end user. This document represents Lumen’s products and offerings as of the date of issue. Services not available everywhere. Business customers only. Lumen may change or cancel products and services or substitute similar products and services at its sole discretion without notice. ©2022 Lumen Technologies. All Rights Reserved.