Telecommunications service providers are under sustained pressure to diversify revenues while managing rising infrastructure costs. Streaming sits at the center of this challenge. Video represents one of the largest drivers of broadband usage, yet it is still frequently treated as a strain on resources rather than a source of value that can be monetized in new ways.

As operators position themselves as aggregators of digital services, video is becoming a strategic value driver requiring greater control, deeper integration, and more efficient delivery models. Multiservice streaming packages are gaining momentum globally, with operators increasingly combining major services into integrated offers alongside connectivity. Meanwhile, a surge in streaming rights agreements and blockbuster live sports events is driving record live viewing traffic, pushing audience peaks to new extremes in both scale and unpredictability.

Operators find themselves at the core of the streaming evolution. The question is no longer how to carry video traffic efficiently, but how to turn that traffic into a sustainable source of value.

From scaling traffic to shaping it

CDN strategy has historically focused on scale, with investment directed toward increasing capacity, expanding infrastructure, and extending geographic reach. While this approach supported the early growth of streaming, it is becoming less effective as live traffic patterns grow more unpredictable. High-profile events generate sudden spikes in demand that cannot be addressed sustainably through incremental capacity increases alone.

The next CDN playbook is about shaping traffic more intelligently. Open CDN models are enabling operators to take a more active role in delivery by exposing their infrastructure to content providers and positioning themselves closer to end users. Hybrid architectures are also becoming standard practice, combining public CDN capacity with infrastructure deployed deeper within telecom networks.

This balance between global reach and localized efficiency reflects a broader evolution in how streaming workloads are managed. Rather than relying solely on large, centralized facilities, operators are distributing delivery functions across regional and Edge locations to improve resilience, reduce latency, and better absorb peak demand.

Take JioStar in India, for example, serving tens of millions of concurrent users during live cricket tournaments – and managing sudden surges in traffic during key moments. At this type of scale, the challenge lies in absorbing sharp, unpredictable spikes across millions of devices without compromising performance. JioStar’s hybrid architecture, combining public CDN capacity with infrastructure deployed deep within telecom networks, is a reference point for how smarter, robust delivery models can bring content closer to end users – and perform across the most demanding live sports environments.

Smarter delivery for modern streaming

Perhaps the most important opportunity centers on the underlying delivery technologies. As audience sizes grow, traditional delivery approaches built on unicast streaming drive significant data duplication and sharp increases in bandwidth consumption during peak events.

These models were never designed to support the monumental scale of modern streaming. Multicast ABR plays a critical role here by reducing duplicate streams across the network, significantly lowering bandwidth usage, server requirements, and energy consumption. This improved efficiency also enables operators to scale to larger audiences without proportionally increasing infrastructure investment, offering a compelling proposition for rights holders and streaming platforms that need to reach huge audiences.

Operators that embed next-generation delivery technologies into their network will unlock new partner revenues as live streaming evolves. And by extending high-performance delivery nodes closer to access networks, they can reduce backhaul traffic, improve latency and maintain consistent quality of experience during peak events.

This approach reflects a broader industry shift, where proximity is central to performance, enabling lower latency, improved resilience and tighter cost control. For operators, it reinforces the strategic value of their infrastructure as the most efficient and scalable path for delivering premium video at scale.

Monetization and security at the infrastructure layer

Large audience sizes with millions of concurrent sessions represent a huge opportunity for more tightly integrated advertising and delivery workflows. Operators that embed monetization capabilities directly within their infrastructure can enable targeted advertising, improve inventory value, and support more advanced measurement. These are the revenue-generating, ROI-centric capabilities that modern streaming services demand. Operators that want to build new revenue should deliver on those needs.

At the same time, performance at scale must be matched by resilience. Streaming platforms face persistent challenges from piracy and malicious traffic, particularly during high-profile live events where both audience size and content value are at their peak. Integrating security capabilities directly into the delivery layer enables real-time detection and mitigation, protecting both revenue streams and network stability. If you’re building out your own CDN today, you want complete confidence that proactive, comprehensive anti-piracy is baked in. And if you’re supporting third-party streaming services with high-value content delivery, they will be expecting the same.

Turning infrastructure into advantage

Streaming demand will continue to grow, bringing larger audiences, sharper traffic spikes and higher expectations for quality and reliability. Operators that continue to scale infrastructure without optimizing it will face increasing cost pressure and miss out on growth opportunities.

The next phase of streaming will be shaped by those who take a more strategic approach to delivery. By combining in-network CDN capabilities, more efficient traffic management, and embedded monetization, telcos can transform their networks and data center assets into high-performance platforms for video delivery. The live streaming surge is a defining moment. The winners are already demonstrating market differentiation and securing sustainable revenue pathways.