Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM), the cloud company that powers and protects life online, announced today that it has joined the Streaming Video Technology Alliance (SVTA) as a Principal Member. The announcement follows the formal merger of DASH Industry Forum (DASH-IF) and the SVTA.
Akamai has a well-established philosophy of contributing to, championing, and – when necessary – forming standards bodies that help define how the web and internet function. The company is engaged in a host of organizations representing the full stack of web and internet infrastructure, from fundamental protocols and network operations to security and emerging technologies.
As a company that helped pioneer the use of content delivery networks to transport video over the public internet, Akamai has played key roles in developing standards to help advance the state of the art in streaming video. Akamai helped found the DASH-IF and CTA WAVE Project, is a longtime participant in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and is now a member of the SVTA, a global consortium of companies and organizations dedicated to helping ensure better standardization and improved user experiences across the streaming industry.
“Industry standards spark innovation and fuel growth,” said James DeMent, Vice President, Product Management, Akamai. “That’s evident in Akamai’s introduction today of new video workflow capabilities that give media companies more control and greater choice across every part of the video delivery chain. The work of both DASH-IF and SVTA as a single entity will have an even greater positive impact on the industry, and Akamai looks forward to continuing to contribute to those efforts.”
“We are excited to have Akamai join the SVTA and foresee them participating in a broad range of projects across such groups as Low Latency Streaming, Measurement/QoE, Streaming Video Operations, and DASH Industry Forum, that will benefit from Akamai’s deep experience and expertise,” said Jason Thibeault, CEO, SVTA. This can ultimately help the industry move to more unified and standardized approaches in the streaming video tech stack.”
The work of the SVTA, with Akamai’s involvement, is aimed at benefiting media companies in a variety of ways. Greater standardization can help streaming services deliver more reliable and higher-quality viewing experiences to their audiences. Increased collaboration and experimentation with new technologies can foster further innovation in areas like low-latency streaming and measuring quality of experience. At the same time, participation in working groups dedicated to privacy and protection can lead to more robust security protocols.
Akamai will show its range of cloud-based media delivery, computing, and security capabilities during IBC 2024 in Amsterdam, September 13th-16th. Akamai will host visitors at the Akamai Lounge, located at the RAI Amsterdam in the Elicium (Hall 13) on the third floor.
Akamai is a gold sponsor of the joint SVTA-DASH-IF event at IBC on Sunday, Sept. 15th, from 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM CET at the Tobacco Theatre. In its fifth year sponsoring the event, Akamai is proud of its continued commitment to advancing streaming technologies and promoting industry standards.
