BT Group took a major step towards commercial deployment of Multicast-Assisted Unicast Delivery (MAUD), teaming with Edgio to integrate the latter’s content delivery network (CDN) with the live streaming service.

BT explained the pair plan to trial the delivery of TV content from its operator EE on set-top boxes “in the live network” in the coming months, progressing MAUD from proof of concept to real-world application.

The partnership comes a few months after BT combined with CDN provider Broadpeak to further boost MAUD with various video delivery components.

MAUD was unveiled in December 2023 following several years of development, designed to offer users a seamless live streaming experience during peak traffic hours, reduce costs and ensure “greener streaming”.

With continued high demand for live content and on-demand services, BT said it sees MAUD as a key solution to manage ever increasing traffic loads. It uses multicast to combine single streams into a shared stream, and then directing it to those “that want to watch the action”.

Integrating CDNs are critical for the content delivery path, explained BT, as it allows caching as close as possible to the customer.

Howard Watson, chief security and networks officer at BT, said its goal is to “develop an efficient live streaming solution that addresses the needs of players within the content delivery path”.

Paolo Pescatore, CEO and President of PP Foresight, said the deal represents a small but important key step for MAUD, but other CDNs will need to come on board so the technology’s merits “can be utilised by all ISPs, not just on BT’s network”.