The impact of Covid-19 has changed – and continues to change – the world in numerous ways as industries are forced to adapt to the new normal. The OTT market has witnessed a significant increase due to the COVID-19 lockdown, whether in VOD, e-commerce, online gaming or entertainment. Meanwhile, with the rollout of 5G, the corresponding growth in bandwidth-hungry content such as 8K streaming and cloud gaming continues.

For OTTs, delivering fast, secure and reliable digital experiences is one of the keys to increasing consumer engagement and brand stickiness, and HGC is committed to delivering cutting-edge digital offerings to meet demand for customized one-stop IaaS, NaaS and SaaS service models.

SaaS-Based OTT Platform & Cybersecurity
With the growing dependence on the internet for work, entertainment and socializing, there is an increased chance of being exposed to the risk of cyber threats and attacks, which are estimated to take place every 39 seconds worldwide. HGC’s one-stop SaaS platform, which runs on a pay-as-you-go model, helps OTTs to react and respond quickly with near-instant circuit activation. For example, AI-wise intelligent databases are used to analyze overall network utilization and performance in order to propose the best possible solution. OTTs also need a multi-layer anti-DDoS solution to defend against cyber threats such as application attacks or volumetric attacks, to maximize network and business availability.

Edge Computing & Game Acceleration
To satisfy consumers’ appetite for high-quality, low-latency video streaming and responsive apps, more OTT platforms are embracing edge computing technology. Edge computing provides OTTs with instant computing power and intelligence to offload application execution from centralized servers to the edge node for ultra-fast performance response avoiding data needing to travel back to the core application. This allows industries such as gaming or media to use edge computing power to achieve optimum performance, with all data collected

through end-user devices. This also enables OTT players to offload their cloud infrastructure and colocation services while increasing the network speeds. 5G’s greater capacity, higher data rates and much lower latency, meanwhile, provides a solid foundation for OTTs to push forward with 4K video and cloud gaming, paving the way for HGC’s Edge Computing, for example, media, content and game accelerator to help OTTs create player-centered platforms and next-generation user experiences.

CDN & Content Platform
A dedicated CDN solution not only helps OTT service providers to deliver high-quality content with minimal latency, but also reduces in-house CDN Total-Cost-of-Ownership for a fast-moving market environment. HGC’s flexible and modular-based content production solutions feature rich backend add-ons for management security, analytics, payment gateways and billings, enabling OTTs to expand their services with increased agility to capitalize on the enormous growth potential, such as engaging with 730 million subscribers in ASEAN

NaaS & IaaS
Recent months have seen a record upsurge in internet usage, with data traffic increasing by nearly 50% in some markets. The high scalability and agility of SDN provides OTTs with the flexibility of burstable bandwidth as well as improved network control to quickly respond to sudden surges in bandwidth needs, for example during the region-wide launch of a new online game or live streaming event. With HGC’s SDN backhaul network, OTTs are enabled to scale up their business speedily by instant activation of ultrafast, steady and affordable connectivity, as well as hyper-scale public cloud direct connect and IXs to increase or defer capacity utilization. This also supports contract-free, on-demand, pay-as-you-go and project-based services while providing additional commercial benefits such as reduced capex and increased elasticity.

The current unprecedented situation also heightens the importance of IaaS to OTTs, as storage needs can grow rapidly and unpredictably.