By Cho Mu-hyun
Qwilt, a content delivery network service provider, opened an office in Korea, its first in Asia, to expand into the region, Tuesday.
"We've been focusing on Korea strategically as a country that has been driving broadband penetration," said Alon Maor, CEO and co-founder of Qwilt, at a press conference in the Intercontinental Parnas, Seoul.
"The networks nowadays, with the rise of over-the-top (OTT) players, should turn intelligent enough to know which content draws the attraction and traffic of users."
OTT is an industry term describing companies that offer services using other firms' established networks.
Qwilt provides software to mobile operators for transparent caching, video delivery and analytics.
Maor said his firm had 150 clients worldwide, and its services have been deployed in 25 countries.
According to Qwilt's estimation, by 2017, 90 percent of downstream consumer traffic will be caused by online video consumption.
Maor said that video delivery today from a content provider to an end-user was extremely inefficient, saying products such as Qwilt's all-in-one platform that combines previously separately managed traffic steering, load balancing and transit will improve this.
Running networks efficiently using these solutions will decrease carrier's capital expenditure and operating expenses substantially, he said.
The firm hopes that its long-term strategy will permanently include content delivery network providers in the value chain of content providers, operators and consumers.
Its video classification engine will be optimized for Naver, Korea's No.1 portal.
The office here will be headed by Jeremy Johnson, vice president of sales for North Asia. Also at the conference, he said Korea's high penetration of broadband, competitive prices, high quality user terminals and content indicates that online video will only expand going forward.
Qwilt was founded three years ago and received investments from venture capital Accel Partners, which is famous for investing early in now-famous companies such as Facebook.
Local mobile carriers SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus have been vocal about the increased workloads on their networks since deploying long-term evolution (LTE), and Qwilt no doubt hopes to clinch them as clients.
There are an estimated 33 million smartphone users here, with over 19 million of them using LTE-enabled ones. Due to the fast download speed provided, subscribers' appetite for video content is only increasing.
Following the success of YouTube and the wide dissemination of mobile touch-screen devices, the number of OTTs, or those that release network-using services have only increased.
Mobile operators say they burden the networks without contributing to its maintenance or expansion. The most well known OTT here that has drawn criticism and sparked debate is mobile messenger provider Kakao.
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| Alon Maor |
"We've been focusing on Korea strategically as a country that has been driving broadband penetration," said Alon Maor, CEO and co-founder of Qwilt, at a press conference in the Intercontinental Parnas, Seoul.
"The networks nowadays, with the rise of over-the-top (OTT) players, should turn intelligent enough to know which content draws the attraction and traffic of users."
OTT is an industry term describing companies that offer services using other firms' established networks.
Qwilt provides software to mobile operators for transparent caching, video delivery and analytics.
Maor said his firm had 150 clients worldwide, and its services have been deployed in 25 countries.
According to Qwilt's estimation, by 2017, 90 percent of downstream consumer traffic will be caused by online video consumption.
Maor said that video delivery today from a content provider to an end-user was extremely inefficient, saying products such as Qwilt's all-in-one platform that combines previously separately managed traffic steering, load balancing and transit will improve this.
Running networks efficiently using these solutions will decrease carrier's capital expenditure and operating expenses substantially, he said.
The firm hopes that its long-term strategy will permanently include content delivery network providers in the value chain of content providers, operators and consumers.
Its video classification engine will be optimized for Naver, Korea's No.1 portal.
The office here will be headed by Jeremy Johnson, vice president of sales for North Asia. Also at the conference, he said Korea's high penetration of broadband, competitive prices, high quality user terminals and content indicates that online video will only expand going forward.
Qwilt was founded three years ago and received investments from venture capital Accel Partners, which is famous for investing early in now-famous companies such as Facebook.
Local mobile carriers SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus have been vocal about the increased workloads on their networks since deploying long-term evolution (LTE), and Qwilt no doubt hopes to clinch them as clients.
There are an estimated 33 million smartphone users here, with over 19 million of them using LTE-enabled ones. Due to the fast download speed provided, subscribers' appetite for video content is only increasing.
Following the success of YouTube and the wide dissemination of mobile touch-screen devices, the number of OTTs, or those that release network-using services have only increased.
Mobile operators say they burden the networks without contributing to its maintenance or expansion. The most well known OTT here that has drawn criticism and sparked debate is mobile messenger provider Kakao.
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