Blog Series 6 - What Castanet Delivers: D2D OTT Video on Demand at Broadcast Scale
- alexanderrenz
- 16 hours ago
- 4 min read
In previous posts we described Castanet 5G Broadcast Internet at a high level and then focused on live streaming. This post turns to the other dominant video workload: OTT video on demand delivered directly to consumer devices at consistent quality, without friction.
For many OTT platforms, VOD is both the growth engine and the margin problem. Traditional unicast CDNs get more expensive as audiences grow. Castanet is built to flip that model: OTT without the OTT tax. Content is king. Delivery is the kingmaker.
Video Already Dominates Network Traffic
Ericsson’s June 2026 Mobility Report, found video accounted for about 75% of all mobile data traffic at the end of 2025. The implication is straightforward: video is the load.
Also AppLogic Networks (formerly Sandvine) confirms in its 2025 Global Internet Phenomena Report that video remains the largest application category by volume. Users downloaded an average of 5.6 GB per day in the video category. On-demand streaming is the largest slice within video. YouTube is typically the single largest application and, in recent AppLogic data, accounts for more than 10% of internet bandwidth. TikTok contributes another 5–7%.
Popular Content Can Be Pre-Positioned
Mobile video is dominated by trending short-form social video plus some VOD. Fixed networks carry more long-form, high-bitrate streaming.
Much OTT VOD is trending and catalog content — the hit series, the film of the week, the video podcast that millions will play over the next few days. A relatively small number of popular episodes can generate enormous repeated demand. A large portion of the load are either the same popular titles being requested again and again or the latest viral video.That pattern is ideal for one-to-all distribution plus edge pre-positioning. Castanet delivers the asset once across its broadcast layer and places it in edge caches for instant local playback. The more popular the title, the more efficient the model becomes.
Built for Growth, Not Penalties
Traditional streaming gets more expensive as audiences grow. Castanet lets platforms and rights holders reach larger audiences without rising delivery costs. Performance stays consistent as viewership increases: high-quality video, smooth playback, and reliable delivery across mobile and fixed devices.
Because 5G Broadcast is a 3GPP standard, it is a native phone feature. The Castanet 5G Broadcast Internet signal can be received without a SIM card and does not consume the user’s data plan. There are no data caps on the broadcast path. The same path serves mobile phones, vehicles, and homes via and 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA).
What Castanet Delivers to Content Owners
OTT streamers and FAST channels
Netflix-class platforms, Disney+-style services, and emerging free ad-supported channels spend heavily on CDNs to deliver on-demand video — often struggling to turn a profit in the direct-to-consumer race. Castanet 5G Broadcast Internet gives them a complementary delivery layer for the titles that generate the most repeated demand. Pre-positioning and broadcast distribution reduce origin and CDN load while preserving quality. Profitability can finally align with quality: more affordable ad-supported channels, stronger margins on catalog hits, and control of delivery quality all the way to the consumer.
Content owners and entertainment brands
Studios, rights holders, and entertainment brands can distribute catalog and trending titles at predictable, flat cost. Popularity stops being a bandwidth penalty. Direct-to-consumer reach becomes viable at national scale. You bring the content. Castanet brings the network and the technology. Shared risk and shared reward.
Creators, podcasters, and independent producers
Video podcasts and long-tail catalogs are exactly the kind of repeated-demand content that unicast wastes and broadcast rewards. Creators can deliver directly to audiences, engage them without platform gatekeepers, and monetize the relationship themselves.
Sports and entertainment brands with on-demand libraries
Highlights, full-game replays, behind-the-scenes series, and branded catalogs can sit at the edge and play instantly. Combined with Castanet’s engagement platform, on-demand viewing becomes social, gamified, and commerce-enabled — polls, predictions, merchandise, and in-moment purchases — without adding delivery cost.
Engagement That Drives Revenue
Castanet is not only a delivery pipe. The engagement platform turns on-demand viewing into an interactive experience: social features, gamification, and integrated eCommerce around key moments in the content. Flexible monetization models can be optimized by audience segment — ad-supported, subscription, or transactional — without an OTT tax that grows with every extra stream.
The VOD Opportunity
Live streaming exposes the unicast cost curve most dramatically. OTT video on demand exposes its waste most clearly: the same popular files are copied across the network millions of times.
Castanet is built for that reality. One-to-all delivery plus intelligent pre-positioning turns the most-watched VOD into the cheapest VOD to deliver — across the home, the phone, the car, and FWA — without SIM dependency and without data-cap friction on the broadcast path.
What Castanet Delivers to Network Operators: A One-to-All Overlay for Video Offload
Castanet’s 5G Broadcast Internet is a seamless extension to existing unicast network infrastructure — a highly efficient one-to-all overlay that delivers content directly to 5G Broadcast devices as a native phone feature. No SIM card. Fixed and mobile. No data caps.
Why Operators Should Care About VOD
Video is the largest application category on both fixed and mobile networks. On-demand streaming is the slice that exerts the greatest volumetric pressure. That load is highly repetitive: the same popular titles, catalogs, and video podcasts requested millions of times.
Cellular and mobile network operators
Cable companies and WISPs
Satellite ISPs (GEO and LEO)
Fixed Wireless Access providers
Legacy DTH and broadband companion providers
Device and infrastructure partners who want a standards-based receive path into 5G MBS handsets, vehicles, and home gateways
Unicast copies that traffic across the last mile for every viewer. Castanet moves popular VOD onto a broadcast overlay so operators can:
Offload high-volume catalog and trending video from congested access links
Improve quality of experience on remaining unicast traffic
Protect margins as video share stays high through 2031
Support 5G FWA by keeping long-form video from saturating wireless last-mile capacity
Offer consumers a frictionless, data-cap-free path for popular on-demand content
Castanet does not replace the unicast internet. It complements it — taking the traffic that scales worst on one-to-one networks and delivering it once, to everyone who wants it, profitably!
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