Work out video streaming bandwidth instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.
Edge bandwidth is viewers times per-stream bitrate plus protocol overhead, and it scales linearly — 5,000 concurrent 1080p streams is over 33 Gbps. What makes streaming viable is caching: at a 92 percent hit rate the origin sees only 8 percent of that, which is why CDN hit rate is the single most important number in a streaming architecture.
Streaming bandwidth
edge = viewers x bitrate x (1 + overhead); origin = edge x (1 - cache hit rate)
Live streams have new segments constantly, and long-tail catalogues have unpopular titles that expire between requests. Popular VOD content approaches 99 percent.
It matches quality to each viewer's connection, so average bitrate falls below the maximum ladder rung. Sizing on the top rung is conservative but safe.