For years, CDNs were treated as a performance add-on: enable a network, push content closer to users, and enjoy the fruits of faster load times. That model works well for websites, images, and small static assets. Video changes the rules completely.
Video traffic is sustained, not bursty. A single HD stream consumes several megabits per second continuously, often for tens of minutes. Multiply that by thousands or hundreds of thousands of concurrent viewers, and delivery stops being a caching problem and becomes a throughput and stability problem.
This is why choosing the best CDN for video isn’t about marketing claims or PoP counts. It’s about whether the infrastructure can operate calmly under constant pressure, not just survive short spikes.
At 400 Gbps, the question shifts from “Can the CDN handle it?” to “Is the CDN designed for this to be normal?”
What “400+ Gbps” Really Means in Practice?
Many providers advertise impressive aggregate numbers, but those figures are often misunderstood.
Aggregate capacity means the theoretical maximum across a global network.Sustained throughput means real traffic delivered continuously, per region, during peak hours.
High-load video platforms care about the second one.
Consider two scenarios:
- A flash crowd that peaks for 10 minutes.
- A prime-time VOD window where traffic holds steady for hours.
Most cloud-native and Anycast-based solutions are optimized for the first. Advanced Hosting’s video infrastructure is built for the second.
For platforms delivering movies, series, courses, or large libraries, sustained throughput is what determines:
- startup time consistency;
- bitrate stability;
- and whether costs remain predictable as audiences grow.
This distinction is often missing when people search for the best video CDN, but it’s the difference between smooth scaling and constant firefighting.
Metrics That Actually Define a High-Load Video CDN
At a large scale, generic CDN metrics stop being useful. What matters instead are indicators that directly map to viewer experience and operational cost.
Time to First Frame (TTFF). How fast does playback actually start, not just DNS resolution or TCP handshake time?
Rebuffer Ratio. How often and how long do playbacks stall Even small increases here have a measurable impact on watch time and churn.
Throughput per Session. Whether users can sustain HD or 4K quality without forced downshifts during peak hours.
Cache Hit Ratio for Large Objects. For VOD, this determines whether your origin quietly survives—or collapses under duplicate segment requests.
Origin Egress Pressure. A hidden cost driver. Poor caching and shielding mean you pay twice: once to the CDN, and again for origin traffic.
A true CDN for video is engineered to keep these metrics stable under load, not just acceptable during tests.
Why Generic and Anycast CDNs Hit Limits with Video?
Many popular CDNs started as static content accelerators. Video support was added later, often by reusing the same Anycast-based architecture.
That approach works well for:
- images;
- JavaScript;
- CSS;
- small downloadable files.
It struggles with:
- multi-gigabyte media;
- adaptive bitrate segments;
- long-lived connections;
- and regional concurrency spikes.
Anycast routing is automatic and decentralized, which makes it simple, but also limits fine-grained control. When traffic surges, you can’t easily decide which edge nodes should absorb load, how hot content should be replicated, or how to protect the origin from synchronized cache misses.
This is why Advanced Hosting separates responsibilities:
- static assets are handled by dedicated CDN content delivery networks optimized for small objects,
- while heavy media delivery runs on a purpose-built Video CDN with explicit traffic control and storage logic.
Trying to force both workloads through the same architecture is convenient but inefficient at scale.
Purpose-Built Video Delivery at Advanced Hosting
Advanced Hosting’s Video CDN is designed specifically for large files and high concurrency. Instead of relying on a single generic edge layer, it uses multiple specialized components that work together as a system.
At a high level, this architecture allows:
- predictable performance under sustained load;
- aggressive origin offload;
- and controlled scaling without black-box automation.
This is the foundation behind our approach to building the CDN for video infrastructure and why it consistently outperforms retrofitted solutions when traffic reaches hundreds of gigabits per second.
