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Rise of Content Delivery Networks in India

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Leena Shedmake
Rise of Content Delivery Networks in India

India has emerged as one of the world's largest consumer of digital content over the past few years. With the proliferation of smartphones, affordable data plans and growing internet penetration, Indians are consuming massive amounts of digital content every day be it watching videos, streaming music, downloading apps or accessing online services. However, the traditional method of hosting all this content from centralized data centers was proving inefficient and creating issues like high latency and poor Quality of Experience (QoE) for end users in India.


Need for localized content delivery


The traditional method of hosting all digital content from centralized data centers located in different parts of the world was causing several problems for Indian users. Content hosted thousands of miles away was resulting in high latency issues as it had to travel long distances to reach users in India. This was seriously affecting user experience especially for latency sensitive services like video streaming, online gaming etc. There were also international bandwidth constraints which further slowed down content delivery.


Due to these issues, Indian users were experiencing buffering, poor video quality, longer page load times and interruptions while accessing online content and services. This poor and inconsistent user experience was becoming a major roadblock for the growth of digital services in India. Content providers realized that they need to move content closer to Indian users to significantly improve performance. This is where Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) emerged as the most viable solution.


Emergence of local CDNs


In the last few years, several Indian as well as global CDN providers started establishing their Point of Presence (PoP) infrastructure across major cities and towns in India to deliver content locally. For example, Akamai, one of the largest global CDNs built an extensive network of 130+ PoPs across 65 cities to serve Indian users. Similarly, Cloudflare launched its network with 30+ PoPs covering major business hubs.


Indian CDN providers like Cloudinary, KeyCDN, StackPath also launched their networks to compete with global giants. These local CDNs proved advantageous for Indian users as they were able to deliver local experiences with minimal latency. They also provided better control and support to domestic content providers. With robust and localized CDN infrastructure now available, digital content load reduced drastically from international pipes and started following local internet routes resulting in faster speeds for end users.


Powering digital services


These India based CDNs have played a pivotal role in powering the growth of digital services in the country. Almost every major OTT platform, news/media website, e-commerce portal, social network etc. started leveraging local CDN's capabilities. For example, Disney+ Hotstar uses Akamai's network for seamless streaming of IPL matches and popular shows. Netflix and Amazon Prime have partnered with Cloudflare to speed up video streaming for their Indian subscribers.


Similarly, major online retailers like Flipkart, Myntra, MakeMyTrip rely on CDNs to deliver low latency shopping experiences. Top social networks Facebook and Twitter also route critical assets through Indian CDNs for their local audiences. CDNs have thus enabled digital and e-commerce businesses to scale their operations across India and offer consistent high quality services throughout the country.


Expanding footprint


With growing demand, Indian CDNs continue expanding their footprint across smaller cities and towns. Akamai recently announced plans to add 50+ new PoPs in 2022 to strengthen coverage in east and central parts of India. Cloudflare is also aggressively growing its network with the goal of covering 100+ locations by 2023.


Indian CDN startups are taking it a step further by launching edge compute services on their infrastructure. For example, KeyCDN unveiled a serverless edge compute platform to allow developers build applications closer to end users. This will further enable use cases like low latency video transcoding, image processing, data caching etc.


As internet and smartphones penetration rise in rural India, CDNs will look to proliferate their presence even deeper nationwide to meet content requirements of the next billion users. The growing investments and advanced capabilities of local CDNs will help India realize its dream of becoming a truly digitally connected society.


Impact on user experience


The proliferation of India Content Delivery Network across India has led to transformation of user experience while accessing online content and services. Popularly used metrics like page load speed witnessed significant improvements as digital assets now load much faster from nearby CDN PoPs compared to distant centralized locations.


According to Google PageSpeed Insights data, average mobile page load time for top Indian websites reduced by 30-50% after deployment on local CDNs. Similarly, latency for popular video and audio streaming platforms came down by 500-1000+ milliseconds leading to seamless playback. CDNs have also empowered businesses to build rich and engaging web/mobile experiences without compromising on performance.


For consumers, faster content delivery translated to higher video quality during playback, lag-free gameplay, quick app downloads, faster checkout on e-commerce sites and near-instant access to information on news/media portals. Overall, CDNs powered improvements in India's digital experience have kept users highly engaged and driving further growth of the internet economy.


Future outlook


Content Delivery Networks have emerged as the backbone of India's digital transformation journey. With online content and internet usage projected to multiply in coming years, CDNs will remain cornerstone of performance and user experience optimization strategy for businesses. Indian CDN infrastructure is also expected to grow significantly to handle exabytes of data being generated within the country.


Edge computing advancements will allow CDNs to offer innovative low latency applications and real-time services beyond just content delivery. Adoption of 5G and fiber broadband infrastructure across India will further magnify the impact of localized content delivery. Overall, CDNs will continue playing a pivotal role in realizing India's vision of empowering citizens digitally as well as making the nation a global digital leader. With advancements and investments, India's Content Delivery Networks are all set for an exciting next phase of growth and innovation.


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