'Online Content Consumption To Take Over Broadcast Content By 2020'

“By the year 2020, users will be more inclined towards online content than the broadcast content,” said Sandeep Reddy, Country Sales Manager, Media, Akamai Technologies.

Mr. Reddy, briefing at the Akamai Technology Day 2017, said that the user behaviour has changed in a significant way and will continue to do so in the coming years. Internet content availability has increased and is easily accessible. Focus on generation of online content is increasing rapidly and companies are trying to become strong in the segment. Online content consumption has become easier with portability and cheap internet connection.

Broadcasters have started taking the internet way. They have started producing more and more shows for their internet audience. The number is subjected to grow and take a huge leap in the years to come. 

The major reason for this paradigm shift is the fact that internet is cheaper than DTH services. The barrier to entry is reduced. The change is coming in a big way from the tier-II and tier-III cities. These small towns and cities are the major consumers of internet related traffic in India. More than 60 per cent of the data consumption for an online content is from these tier-II and tier-III cities, which is a major boost to the Digital India campaign. 

‘Consumption is moving from broadcast. In the years to come, internet content will have the primary viewership. This has only been possible because of the great efforts from Indian Telecom Companies, by making 4G affordable and laying a strong connectivity throughout’, Sidharth Pisharoti, Regional Vice-President, Media, India, Akamai Technologies.

Talking of latency, in the OTT format, Sidharth Pisharoti said that Akamai is working to reduce the latency. This will help the medium attain a faster status than that of the broadcast. Akamai has come up with low latency streaming. Using various analytics, the company is strengthening the medium in all prospects, like the pre-positioning of the content in a particular application, for the customer to watch, based on his viewing behaviour. Technology is making services more intelligent.

The growth of digitization leads to a very serious concern for the cyber security. Akamai with its collective efforts is making the internet business ready by catering to more than 300 million plus customers in India. Speaking on cyber security, Sidharth Malik, Managing Director and Vice President, India, Akamai Technologies said that the internet is the backbone of your digital business as 5.5 million new things get connected to internet every single day. 

All the services today have become digitized and are exposed to the internet, increasing the importance of cyber security. The service needs to be available at a faster rate, but with added security. There is lots of data on the web that needs to be protected, for instance, the Aadhar details, that can easily be misused. 

Adding further on the topic, Nick Hawkins, Senior Director, Product Management, Cloud Networking said that a company must also evaluate its internal environment in order to keep the security intact. The centralised networks being used in most of the organizations are not providing the required amount of security. That’s why the applications are moving to Cloud. 

Cloud gives the capacity to react to the threats immediately. The roles of machine learning, when it comes to identifying threats have improved. The machines can predict the threats and alarm the systems in advance, preventing the cyber-attack to happen in the first place.