Online video delivery company Qwilt and South African IP networking service integrator three6five have announced they are working together to improve over-the-top streaming video strategies for service providers in Africa.

The companies said the partnership will allow three6five to offer Qwilt’s open cache solution to local service providers to address the growing demand for OTT video in the region.

“The availability of new streaming services in Africa means that in order to remain competitive, network operators must redesign their network architecture to better support streaming video,” said three6five CEO Tyrone Carroll. “We’re excited to partner with (Qwilt) to bring the benefits of network cost savings and improved Quality of Experience to network operators of all sizes in Africa.”

According to Carroll, the implementation of Qwilt’s solution will allow operators to circumvent the necessity for buying more routers, switches, links to upgrade networks and upgrading transit gateways and capacity.

Qwilt said its open cache solution is designed specifically for scalable video delivery on high capacity operator networks. The solution also offers operators insights into growth trends, content sources and consumer preferences through a suite of media analytics.

Qwilt said the use of open caching for online video delivery at the network edge can help reduce network capital and operational costs, and typically yields a return on investment in less than a year.

“It won’t take long before streaming traffic in Africa accounts for 60 percent or more of a service provider’s downstream network traffic at peak — as we see now in Europe and the USA,” said Qwilt’s vice president of EMEA Dave Matthews. “With open caching, operators can offload 50 percent or more of streaming video traffic to a local cache on the network, reducing the cost of transit bandwidth and the cost of internal network capacity required to keep up with streaming demand. Our partnership with three6five will help operators prepare their networks to handle the rapid growth in streaming traffic from all types of content providers.”

In 2013, Mediacom Communications also turned to Qwilt for help with online video delivery using their. Qwilt unveiled the details of its caching technology a year later, touting its ability to improve quality of service.