China Telecom’s CDN Technology Transforms User Experiences While Adding Reliability and Security

Transmission speed and reliability in the digital world are more important than ever, and content delivery networks (CDNs) are paving the way for better internet and mobile technology services by serving static assets from the edge — as well as site acceleration and other products.

In China, only 44 percent of the population are Internet users, but that’s still enough people to make it the world’s largest online population. As the number of users is expected to increase considerably in the coming years, leading Chinese IT service providers seek to innovate underlying frameworks in ways that both serve customers and satisfy regulatory requirements.

China’s IT industry has a number of projects in progress to further its capacity to serve the coming wave of virtual activity and meet these demands. A major initiative is improving content delivery network (CDN) infrastructure.

CDN Development

A CDN is a system that delivers content from a website or mobile application to people more quickly and efficiently, based on their geographic location. Comprising a network of servers (“points of presence,” or POPs) in locations across the globe, CDNs cache static resources, bringing data closer to users and reducing necessary round-trip time. Content delivery networks are useful across a range of verticals:

• Ecommerce: A CDN helps e-commerce sites deliver content quickly and efficiently, even during the holiday shopping season or other high-traffic times. Without CDNs, load times for images and other elements would be a considerably longer for users who might be hundreds or thousands of miles away from the host servers.
• Finance: CDNs allow banking institutions to deliver sensitive data to consumers and analysts on a range of devices with a fast, secure and reliable infrastructure. Also, there is additional defense against network and application-level attacks.
• Media/Publishing: A CDN can help media companies update pages in real time. For delivering images and video, CDNs can take advantage of content optimization techniques and device caching that promotes smooth delivery.
• Mobile apps: A CDN delivers dynamic and location-based content, reducing load times and increasing responsiveness. Other techniques that help the mobile user experience include text compression and video pacing, for example.
• Technology and SaaS: A CDN helps tech sites serve billions of requests each day. Particular concerns by SaaS providers addressed by a CDN might include onboarding times and SSL security.

A project involving a partnership between China Telecom Global and Conversant Solutions Pte Ltd is the introduction of an international CDN in which the two companies’ CDN infrastructures integrate through a CDN federation (an interconnection of individually operated CDNs) to provide a global delivery framework.

This connection will enable content upload, delivery, storage, transcoding, management and related services. It will optimize both companies’ resources and will improve the quality and quantity of Chinese internet services. Faster speeds mean faster load times for web and mobile users, quick scalability during heavy traffic times, minimized risk of traffic spikes (which ensures site stability), decreased infrastructure costs due to traffic offloading, and better site performance. Other benefits include the availability of usage analytics, high-capacity infrastructures (for higher availability and lower network latency), and improved performance.

More stable broadband connections will help companies doing business in China to extend their presence and provide better quality and security. China Telecom Americas offers a high-speed content delivery network with a strong presence across the country and the world, accelerating the delivery of content in China and beyond.

What to Look For in a China CDN Provider

Because the point of a CDN is to reduce the distance between your users and the servers bringing them desired content and information, it’s smart business to find a local provider.

When investigating, consider whether the provider can navigate infrastructure hurdles. In addition to these basic framework issues, enterprises entering new markets will likely need help understanding local internet laws or regulations which may change frequently.

China Telecom offers clear advantages to companies looking to improve performance in China and other Asia-Pacific markets where they lack a physical server presence.

These advantages include:

• Full network control: China Telecom owns and operates one of the world’s best-connected networks, delivering content to last-mile networks without relying on third-party transit providers with their own routing policies.
• Licensure: China Telecom has a full CDN license in China and is licensed to host and deliver web content throughout the country.
• Reliable, easy to use storage: Storage options include secure origin, external file and cloud-based solutions, fully optimized for specific technical requirements. Customers can upload content via Aspera, FTP, SFTP, R-Sync, and SCP. Data is securely stored and backed up using state-of-the-art firewall and data-retention technologies.
• Advanced streaming: Support for streaming on demand, live broadcasts, and adaptive streaming media over HTTP. Dynamic Content Packaging (DCP) of adaptive streaming media in HDS and HLS formats. Encoding and transcoding functions available for content compatibility with a wide range of viewing platforms. (This is especially important as many consumers in China view video via personal devices.)

Learn more about China Telecom’s CDN features and service, which includes fully customized solutions packages.

Readers are invited to learn more about plans for improving communications technology in China by China Telecom and China Telecom Americas.