Concurrent Opens its Transparent Caching Solution

A year ago Concurrent announced that it "Enters the Fast Growing (30%+ CAGR) Transparent Cache Market" (here).

Not, the company decided to turn the offering into an open source. Concurrent announced that it will "open-source its transparent caching solution and launch a related suite of enterprise support services for commercial customers. Branded as Laguna™, Concurrent’s open-source transparent caching solution improves the quality of over-the-top (OTT) services like Netflix®, Hulu®, and Amazon Prime® TV, as well as dozens of other Internet content sources, by democratically caching popular content deep at the edge of service provider networks. This improves service quality, minimizes transit costs, and reduces overall network congestion"

Laguna integrates with Concurrent’s recently announced open-source content delivery network (CDN) solution, which is based on Apache Traffic Server™, Traffic Control, Ceph® storage, and Concurrent’s own software contributions. It also works with the company’s Unified Content Delivery Solution, a full-featured CDN solution for delivering commercial video services to set-top boxes and Internet connected devices".

The Laguna transparent caching solution helps service providers better manage network utilization by transparently caching popular Internet content within the service provider’s network. Once content is cached, consumer requests can be fulfilled using local server resources rather than accessing data through the Internet peering point. 

For the service provider, this reduces congestion on the IP network, lowers peering costs, and provides improved control over network utilization during peak usage periods. From a consumer perspective, transparent caching improves the quality and performance of OTT streaming services.

See "Concurrent Announces Open-Source Transparent Caching Solution" - here.

[PeerApp]: Caching iOS9 Delivered 80% of the Traffic

Dan Rayburn posted some information. collected by PeerApp and US ISPs on iOS9 download traffic:

".. around 1pm ET on Wednesday after iOS 9 was released, combined traffic from iOS 9 downloads spiked to almost 13Gbps. Nearly 80% (over 10Gbps) of this traffic is being delivered through PeerApp’s cache, avoiding congesting of the operator and University network. 

Looking at individual systems, PeerApp said they are seeing speed improvements on the order to 10-20x; meaning customers served by their caches are getting the apple.com traffic 10-20x faster from cache. One University in particular is experiencing up to 100x speed improvement in downloads.

..In conversations I’ve had with some ISPs in the U.S., iOS 9 downloads have been accounting for anywhere between 8%-15% of traffic inside their network"

See "iOS 9 Download Traffic Peaks At 13Gbps Across 70 Telco & University Networks" - here.

Parallel Wireless Enhances PeerApp and Saguna MEC Solution

Parallel Wireless announced a "partnership to enhance the Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) solution provided by PeerApp and Saguna Networks. Saguna’s technology is incorporated in PeerApp’s previously announced MEC solution (see "PeerApp Integrates Saguna's Mobile Edge Solution" - here and "Mobile Edge Computing Group Formed" - here).

To further improve backhaul capacity for the PeerApp/Saguna MEC solution architecture, Parallel Wireless is using its software-defined, multi-mode, multi-band Converged Wireless System (CWS) base station and HetNet Gateway (HNG) orchestrator.

See "Parallel Wireless Reimagines Mobile Content Delivery with PeerApp and Saguna" - here.

[Gartner]: MNOs Should: Rethink Their Data Caps; Cache and Optimize Video

A new report by Jessica Ekholm [pictured], research director, Gartner finds that "Global mobile data traffic is set to reach 52 million terabytes (TB) in 2015, an increase of 59 percent from 2014,.. The rapid growth is set to continue through 2018, when mobile data levels are estimated to reach 173 million TB .. New, fast mobile data connections (3G and 4G) will grow more slowly, from 3.8 billion in 2015 to 5.1 billion in 2018, as users switch from slower 2G connections and consume more mobile data. 

Gartner analysts advise communication service providers (CSPs) to rethink their data caps to meet consumer needs and win market share .. CSPs must create and sell data plans with higher caps to increase their share of this growing market. With video usage as a percentage of total data usage set to rise from 50 percent now to 60 percent by 2018, we should expect CSPs to offer the best-of-breed video experience to consumers, This involves using video optimization technologies and caching content closer to the consumer. Contract plans that single out video traffic to allow users to reach a certain cap (without touching their contract data cap) will increase usage and revenue for CSPs and meet consumer demand for more mobile video."

See "Gartner Forecasts 59 Percent Mobile Data Growth Worldwide in 2015" - here.

Qwilt Raised $25M; Has 50 Customers

Inbal Orpaz reports to TheMarker that "Qwilt raised additional $25M in its 4th round, bringing the total investments to date in the caching company to $67M [see Aug '13 "Qwilt has 40 Customers and 10 Trials; Raised $16M" - here] ... Qwilt has 100 employees and plans now to add 30 to its Israeli R&D center". 

Estimates are that the company valuation is $200M, the revenues in 2014 were several tens of $millions, expected to be doubled this year. The company said that in 2014 its revenues grew by 400%.  

Qwilt has 50 customers [see CallPlus, ViewQwest. kbro. Toyama. Mediacom], including the largest ISPs, and installed 80 new devices during 2014"

[Technavio]: 33% CAGR for Transparent Caching Market 2015-2019

A new report by Yechnavio finds that the "global transparent caching market is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 33% from 2015-2019.

.. over the last five years, global consumer Internet traffic has increased by more than five times. OTT content such as videos, file sharing, web surfing, and online gaming have grown significantly. Web surfing includes accessing web content, emails, and online data, apart from videos.

This is a small CAGR increase compared to the previous report predicting a 31.3% for 2013-2018 (here).

"The traffic is expected to increase from 34.29 Exabytes per month, in 2014, to over 98.16 Exabytes per month, by 2019. An increase in Internet traffic will increase the demand for transparent caching from network operators and MSOs. It will also help the operators provide the highest QoE to their subscribers and achieve cost efficiency.

Key Vendors: Akamai Technologies, Blue Coat Systems, Juniper Networks, PeerApp and Qwilt. 

Other Prominent Vendors: Alcatel-Lucent, Allot Communications, ARA Networks, Brocade, BTI Systems, Cisco Systems, Conversant, Fortinet, Google, Huawei, Level 3 Communications, MaraSystem, SuperLumin Networks, Swiftserve and VidScale".
    

See "Global Transparent Caching Market 2015-2019" - here and "Transparent Caching Market to Grow at 33% CAGR by 2019 Says a New Research Report at ReportsnReports.com" - here. 

SVA Published Open Cache Guiding Principles

    

The Streaming Video Alliance (SVA) published "..guiding principles and system attributes from its Open Caching Working Group. The SVA was established to create an open architecture, standards and best practices to support the future of online video"

SVA member list includes vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco and Qwilt [see "Qwilt: "Open Transparent Caching" vs. Content Providers' "Black Boxes""- hereas well as CSP such as Comcast, KT, Telecom Italia and Telstra. However,major OTT VIdeo providers such as Netflix are not there.

"..  the Streaming Video Alliance has commissioned the Open Caching Working Group to develop proposed standards, best practices and policy to support a new layer of content caching within the ISP network, close to consumers. 

The Open Caching Working Group, commissioned earlier this year, has already developed a guiding principles document which will serve as the basis for a proposed Open Caching specification. This new Open Caching layer will perform a network function, optimizing network capacity utilization and quality of experience. Moreover, the Open Caching Layer will be open and universal, able to optimize any HTTP, HTTPS or other delivery protocols from any provider.

The attributes of Open Caching system include:

• Open - Components of the system can be implemented by anyone
• Universal - The system can serve any content provider stream, including HTTP, HTTPS or other delivery protocols
• Shared Resource - The system optimizes the use of storage and compute resources for many content providers
• Fairness - Content is treated objectively and in real time
• Network Function - The system creates alternate network capacity and reduces congestion within the ISP network as well as reduces server capacity requirements for the content provider
• Software-based - Components of the system can run as a software solution
• Quality of Experience (QoE) - The QoE for end users being served by the Open Cache will meet or exceed the current QoE without the Open Cache in place.

See "Streaming Video Alliance Publishes Open Caching Guiding Principles and Attributes" - here.

Saguna Adds 3rd Party App Support (Based on Intel's DPDK)

Saguna Networks announced a "new release of the Saguna Open-RAN creating an open platform running 3rd party applications into the mobile Radio Access Network (RAN). This release extends the company’s award-winning CDN-Extend solution, which enables CDNs to operate inside the mobile base station .. Operating from the Radio Edge, in close proximity to mobile users, the Saguna Open-RAN enables applications to reduce click-to-play time by up to 50%, stream video smoothly and minimize page download times. The Open-RAN platform also provides real-time network condition status to promote network-aware content optimization".

Related post - "Nokia's Optimization: Video Speed Increases by 50%; Akamai Detects Congestion" - here.

"The Saguna Open-RAN platform creates a cloud-computing environment within the radio access radio using off-the-shelf Intel® Xeon® processor-based servers and Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) optimized packet processing. The innovative mobile edge computing platform preserves user mobility and core functionalities such as lawful interception, policy control and charging". 

See "Saguna Expands Open-RAN Platform Bringing CDNs, Content Caching and OTTs Together in the Mobile Radio Edge" - here.

PeerApp Integrates Saguna's Mobile Edge Solution

PeerApp announced an "..evolution of its current mobile core offerings to bring Internet content acceleration to the edge of mobile networks with the Saguna Open-RAN leading Mobile Edge Computing platform. The PeerApp Mobile Edge Computing solution will complement the existing PeerApp mobile core solution by bringing optimization functionality such as content caching, DNS (domain name server) caching, and video optimization to the Radio Access Network (RAN). The new solution will deliver hierarchical caching that expands into the RAN.

The PeerApp Mobile Edge Computing solution, powered by Saguna, leverages Network Function Virtualization (NFV) to bring cloud and virtualization concepts to the RAN; this allows applications to run as close as possible to the subscriber. As a result, subscriber Quality of Experience (QoE) – which is particularly challenging with mobile video – is improved. This also changes mobile network operator (MNO) economics by increasing margin and opening monetization opportunities".

See "PeerApp extends its Mobile Content Acceleration Solution to the RAN to help Operators meet Mobile Video Demand; Leverages Saguna Open-RAN" - here.

Qwilt Goes to School: Saves 65% of Video Bandwidth and 96% of iOS Updates

Qwilt announced several deployments in college campuses that - ".. provides behind-the-scenes technology which fuels the new college lifestyle that now includes consuming copious amounts of online video such as educational streaming content, binge-able shows on Netflix and streaming Twitch tournaments. 

.. Jason Sebastiani, Principal Network Engineer at Grand Canyon University said: “.. After just one week of automatically learning what it could cache, we turned the Qwilt cache on and got immediate savings. Qwilt’s Open Cache solution currently serves close to 1GB per second of our streaming video peak traffic per day, which is about 65 percent of our total video bandwidth.”

Grand Canyon University (GCU) also benefitted from Qwilt’s solution when the bandwidth-heavy iOS 8.0 update came out. The Apple software update, which slowed traffic on networks nationwide, was considered a non-event for GCU because Qwilt cached it immediately and then delivered over 96 percent of the iOS updates from cache, allowing the average user to upgrade their Apple devices in minutes.

In addition to GCU, other schools that have deployed Qwilt’s Open Cache solution to date include: Lynn University, Western Kentucky University, University of Alaska and University of Hartford.


See "Qwilt Makes Online Video ‘Binge-able’ on College Campuses" - here.

Mobile Edge Computing Group Formed

The ETSI organization announced recently that "The first meeting of ETSI’s newly created Mobile-Edge Computing (MEC) Industry Specification Group (ISG) took place on 2-4 December 2014, hosted by Nokia Networks in Munich. 

The group has attracted 24 member and participant  organizations [here], including network operators, vendors, technology suppliers and Content Delivery Network (CDN) providers.

.. MEC is a natural development in the evolution of mobile base stations and the convergence of IT and telecommunications networking. Mobile-edge Computing will enable new vertical business segments and services for consumers and enterprise customers. Use cases include:

• video analytics
• location services
• Internet-of-Things (IoT)
• augmented reality
• optimized local content distribution and
• data caching

See "Executive Briefing – Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) Initiative" - here and "Mobile-Edge Computing – Introductory Technical White Paper" - here. 

See "New ETSI Mobile-Edge Computing Industry Specification Group starts work" - here.

Netflix to the FCC: "Open Connect is not a fast lane"

Earlier this month, FCC Commissioner, Ajit Pai [pictured], sent a letter (here) to Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, saying that Netflix "..has been working to effectively secure "fast Lames" for its own content on ISPs' networks at the expense of its competitors".

The claim refers to Netflix' CDN service, Open Connect (see "How does Netflix Manage Video Delivery?" - here) and may have to do with the statistics Netflix itself published on ISPs' performance (See "Netflix CDN Customers have More Fun" - here).

A similar claim has been raised in the past against BT and its Wholesale caching features (see "BT's Wholesale Content Connect Service and Net Neutrality" - here).

ChristopherLibertelli, VP Global Public Policy, responded in a letter to the Mr. Pai: "Netflix designed the Open Connect content delivery network (CDN) to provide consumers with a high quality video experience that enables ISPs to manage their networks in an efficient and cost effective way. Through Open Connect, Netflix brings data to the location(s) of an ISP’s choice, usually at common Internet exchange points or through localized caches. This is how most CDNs interconnect. Under the Open Connect program, Netflix bears all of the costs of providing Open Connect equipment to any ISP that chooses to participate in Open Connect.

Neflix Open Connect
hardware (here)

Open Connect is not a fast lane.  Since the beginning of this proceeding, Netflix has consistently opposed the Commission permitting ‘fast lanes” in consumer Internet connections.  Open Connect does not prioritize Netflix data. Open Connect uses “best efforts” Internet services into and out of its content  caches. When an ISP asks Netflix to localize an Open Connect cache within its network, it does not  disadvantage other Internet content. To the contrary, Open Connect helps ISPs reduce costs and better manage congestion, which results in a better Internet experience for all end users"

Only ISPs can speed up or slow down data that flow over their last mile. When Netflix directly

interconnects with an ISP, Netflix data does not travel faster than other Internet content VV unless an ISP is artificially constraining capacity to other data sources".

Cache Deployments [330]: CallPlus Brands [New Zealand] Uses Qwilt

Qwilt, announced it will ".. power the online video traffic delivered by leading New Zealand telcos Slingshot and Orcon. Qwilt’s Video Fabric Controller will be used by Slingshot and Orcon, both owned by New Zealand fixed line, voice, mobile and internet company, CallPlus, to cache and deliver online video traffic from a growing number of content providers, including Amazon, Apple, Hulu, Netflix and Twitch".

Back in July 2011, Bluecoat announced "CallPlus has selected Blue Coat®CacheFlow® 5000 appliances to help manage the large and growing demand of its customers for Internet content from outside New Zealand" (here) and in September 2010 Alcatel-Lucent announced that "it has been chosen by Orcon, the fastest growing service provider in New Zealand, to improve the delivery and experience of Internet-based video to its customers" (here).

"CallPlus selected Qwilt for the job because other vendors were unable to meet Slingshot and Orcon’s requirements for universal caching. Upon deploying Qwilt’s open caching technology, Slingshot and Orcon saw immediate savings in international transit costs and improved quality of experience (QoE) for its subscribers, when compared to competitive caching products".

See "Qwilt Selected by Slingshot, Orcon to Cache Increasingly Popular OTT Video Content" - here.

Qwilt Launched a Mobile Core and Edge Video Open Cache Solution

Qwilt unveiled the ".. Qwilt Mobile Video Fabric, purpose built to address the unique challenges of over-the-top (OTT) video delivery for mobile service providers. Qwilt Mobile Video Fabric is a new software defined networking (SDN)-based open caching and acceleration suite, allowing mobile operators to improve the performance of their network while maximizing their current infrastructure investment.

..The network strain, which will only get worse, is already causing the quality of experience (QoE) for video viewing to suffer from issues such as radio access network (RAN) congestion, buffer bloat, latency and packet loss in both RAN and mobile backhaul.

.. the Mobile Video Fabric, enables dynamic caching of unmanaged and managed streams of video content on mobile networks. This open caching solution, which can be deployed either at a centralized (Gi/SGi) level or distributed (eNodeB) level, will extract the most value and capacity from existing mobile network infrastructure by improving network effective capacity by up to 35 percent. Powered by the SDN-based Qwilt QwOS™ software and enhanced with transmission control protocol (TCP) acceleration capabilities, the Qwilt Mobile Video Fabric reduces network latency, improves throughput and addresses complicated mobile video RAN and backhaul challenges such as packet loss and congestion".

See "Qwilt Launches NFV-based Caching and Acceleration Solution to Power Video on Mobile Networks" - here.

Aterlo's CEO: "The idea is to charge a monthly subscription fee"

Following my post on Aterlo Networks  ("Ex-Sandvine Team NightShifts Netflix for Satellite Subscribers" - here) earlier this week, I had a short Q&A session with Gerrit Nagelhout, Atelo's CEO [pictured]. The first thing I learned is that Gerrit spent several years at Sandvine's R&D center in Israel (here), but more-importantly - much more on Aterlo's plans.

Gerrit started with the observations led to the starting Aterlo: 

When we left Sandvine, we set out to solve the problem of peak congestion caused by streaming media in the access network. We felt this was a space that didn't have enough focus yet. This is an issue for any network, but in particular the rural ISPs (satellite , fixed wireless and some DSL) are struggling to deliver a good Streaming Video experience. Being a startup we had to focus and choose one area so we started out with Netflix. 

Q: I understand that Aterlo targets service providers (here) as a market, rather than the consumers.

A: With our Sandvine background, we originally fully intended to sell directly to service providers. Although we are in talks with a number of them now, we actually started with the end consumers. As you probably know, selling to service providers can take time. We were looking for a way to bring our first version of the product to market as fast as possible in order to gauge interest and get valuable product feedback. We figured that from there we would see what would happen. Either continue to sell to end consumers and/or attract the attention of service providers and start working directly with them. In some cases it would even make sense to integrate our technology with their existing home gateways.

On the consumer front, many satellite internet providers structure their plans to have either unlimited/free or additional bytes available at night. These people typically can't use Netflix at all (or if they do only at very low quality levels and in great moderation). This was a perfect starting point for NightShift. We posted on a couple of ISP forums and got our first batch of beta customers this way. Somebody with free nights can now basically watch an unlimited amount of Netflix, while not causing the ISP any congestion issues as its all downloaded off peak. Actually it makes it better for the ISP even in this case for those that did use some Netflix during the peak already.

Q: What is the business model?
   

A; In terms of the end consumer business model, the idea is to charge a monthly subscription fee (something less than Netflix itself). NightShift currently supports various ASUS routers (pretty much anything running asuswrt with a USB port). We expect to expand upon this in the future. Part of our software runs on the router, and part of it in our cloud service (hence the monthly subscription). For now, consumers buy an ASUS router and a USB Flash Drive (typically 64GB), download our software onto the Flash drive, put it into the router and it automatically installs from there.

Q: What are the other benefits to the carrier?

A: At this point, NightShift is in beta and deployed at end consumers of a number of different service providers. We are now also in talks directly with a number of carriers. The benefits to the carriers are

• Reduction in peak bandwidth leading the less congestion and/or ability to add more subscribers to typically constrained capacity networks such as satellite
   
• Reduced churn in subscribers (or even additional subscribers)
   
• Potential value add packages they can sell to their subscribers while using off-peak bandwidth that is already available. 

Q: How do you select the content to cache? 

A: There are a couple of different models for selecting the content. NightShift automatically downloads subsequent episodes in TV shows when one episode is watched. This doesn't require any consumer interaction and is a great to way to automatically offload peak bandwidth. About 70% of Netflix is in the form of TV shows. 

For those consumers that want to download all Netflix at night (we are getting this a lot right now), we have provided a mechanism to schedule movies. That is currently done by watching the first few seconds of the movie from their Netflix player in order to provide a hint to NightShift. We are looking at other options for this in the future.

We do not break the Netflix DRM, you need an active Netflix subscription and internet connection to be able to use NightShift. NightShift stores the content in the same encrypted way that a network level cache would.  Because of this we think this is a good thing for content providers such as Netfix also as it will result in additional subscribers and improved QoS for them.

Optimization Deployments [329]: LG U+[Korea] Tests Nokia's Base Station Cache and Video Optimization

Nokia announced that "LG Uplus has completed a three-month long trial of its Intelligent Network Platform (INP), realizing significant benefits: Up to 35% performance gain in content delivery with reduced latency for big objects of 10-30 MB. This means that mobile users save six seconds download time for a software package that usually takes 20 seconds to download. The trial also showed around 90% operating and capital cost saving in the mobile backhaul link, improved throughput, and a secure yet faster access to enterprise networks via LTE".

Related posts:

• StarHub Trialed Nokia's Liquid Applications at WTA Finals - here
• Rumors: NSN's Liquid Applications Uses Saguna's Technology - here
• Zain [Saudi Arabia] Trials Nokia's Liquid Applications - here

"Nokia’s radio technology, Liquid Applications and professional services were used in the trial. CDNetworks, a global leader in the CDN space, also participated in the trial to evaluate the Liquid Applications’ impact on its commercial CDN service offerings. With these results, LG Uplus will be able to launch even better personalized services on its LTE network .. The LG Uplus INP is currently loaded with rich Liquid Applications features: Content Caching, Video Optimization, CDN Integration, and Enterprise Zone".

See "LG Uplus, Nokia Networks trial Intelligent Network Platform in live LTE network" - here.

PeerApp Doubles Capacity

PeerApp announced a "new software release that doubles the traffic handling capacity, while keeping the same footprint of the award-winning UltraBand^® product line. The Company is also introducing new mid-range products, creating the broadest product range in the industry scaling from under 1 Gbps traffic handling capacity through to 150 Gbps in a single system for Tier 1 needs.

See "PeerApp Doubles Capacity for Internet Video, Media and Entertainment Delivery Solution" - here

StarHub Trialed Nokia's Liquid Applications at WTA Finals

Nokia announced that StarHub [Singapore] has trialed ".. implementation of Nokia’s Liquid Applications solution at its 4G mobile base stations within the Indoor Stadium at Singapore Sports Hub, bringing ‘live’ sports action closer to spectators. For the trial conducted on 21 October 2014, four ‘live’ video feeds of the Rising Stars Finals played at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global were delivered concurrently to spectators on mobile devices, giving them different perspectives of the action played out in the court. Spectators were able to zoom in on the action by selecting any preferred camera angle at any time .. StarHub is carrying out further trials of the full suite of Liquid Applications".

"Nokia’s Liquid Applications, an industry first solution, brings superior services to mobile broadband customers from the mobile base station. This is achieved by bringing applications, content, popular Internet sites or enterprise solutions into the base station whereby these are stored, processed and delivered directly and rapidly to mobile devices, increasing customers' mobile surfing performance. The solution will also allow mobile operators to offer other innovative services such as augmented reality and location-based services". [Related post: "Rumors: NSN's Liquid Applications Uses Saguna's Technology" - here]

See "StarHub and Nokia Networks at the edge of mobile content delivery" - here.

Cache Deployments [323]: ViewQwest [Singapore] Use Qwilt to Improve QoE on Fiber

Qwilt announced that "ViewQwest, Singapore’s premium fiber broadband operator, has deployed the Qwilt Video Fabric Solution to deliver improved quality of experience (QoE) to ViewQwest’s customers ..  

When fiber broadband was introduced to consumers and businesses in Singapore, ViewQwest took full advantage by launching Fibernet, a superior service for popular online game streaming applications like Twitch, and online video streaming sites such as Netflix and YouTube".

Vignesa Moorthy [pictured], CEO, ViewQwest said: “Our Fibernet service was designed to eliminate antiquated practices such as severe caps on international bandwidth, traffic shaping, port blocking and throttling of downloads and torrents. We needed an innovative approach to caching that doesn’t sacrifice quality of experience or performance of our service offerings,.. We also saw an immediate improvement in network optimization and are very impressed with the QoE we are now able to offer our customers”.

Alon Maor, CEO, Qwilt said: "We are honored to provide a solution that can reduce the amount of OTT video traffic by up to 80 percent and offer a higher QoE across all major content provider sites.”

See "Qwilt’s Plug-and-Play QB-Series Video Fabric Controller Deployed by ViewQwest" - here.

Apple IOS8 Update - DDoS Attack? Can Cache Help?

Some traffic management aspects of the recent iOS8 release:

• Procera Networks' blog explains that ".. the latest IOS 8 update has hit some networks pretty hard. Several of our customers had such severe traffic spikes that they initially thought that they were under a DDOS attack ..  because the DDOS protection mechanisms implemented in the Procera solution kicked in, and customers were concerned that there was a wide-scale attack occurring. Using our Dynamic LiveView technology, we were able to quickly isolate the problems to Apple Devices and the Apple Update signature.
  The worst case we saw occurred in a CIS mobile network [left chart], where traffic jumped an almost astonishing 4000% at peak from normal to become one of the biggest traffic sources on the network. This bandwidth was achieved even with the operator managing the traffic using fair usage for each subscriber to ensure that the rest of the network traffic was not affected by the download. This is an astonishing number for a non-video application, and is the network equivalent of an Apple flash mob.
• 
  The European mobile network below saw [right chart] a big spike of over 1Gbps of Apple store updates in a very short time, with Apple Updates going from .01% of total network traffic to over 6% of the total traffic.

See "Apple’s Flash Mob: IOS 8 Update Resembles DDOS Attack for operators" - here.

• PeerApp has "released data that shows 96 percent of iOS 8 requests through PeerApp customers were served from the cache, allowing subscribers to download the update much more quickly. PeerApp measured apple.com traffic of a sample of customers over the period of September 15th – 21st, and found traffic peaked after the iOS 8 release to over 4 Terabytes per hour – a rate four times higher than normal traffic peaks of 1 Terabyte per hour".
  
  See "Millions of iOS 8 updates Delivered 8 to 12 Times Faster with PeerApp" - here.