(Fwd) Re:Open Media?

[Christopher Browne]

On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 3:43 PM, James Knott <james.knott-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
>>
>> Remember: Bell is rushing to be able to provide HD TV over IP.  The
>> required bandwidth is much higher than levels they are labelling abuse
>> now.
>
> One major difference is that many people may be watching the same channel at
> the same time, unlike internet or phone use, where you you have unique
> content for each user.

But it isn't obvious to me that they'd be likely to be able to take
advantage of that fact.

It's only really possible if they can put little "caching servers"
near the customers, and force customers to do some combination of:
a) Pull only the programming that's on a cache near you
b) Enforce "broadcast" by requiring that you share programming via
having you and 15 other nearby customers start pulling at the same
time

If Bell doesn't have an "app server" layer at which to put that
"sharable cache" that's near to customers (and far from the central
place), then they're left with doing point-to-point transmissions for
everyone, and reverting to the huge level of required bandwidth that
Hugh suggests.

>From what I see of the behaviours of the Bell portal software, I can't
see them architecting their customer facing network to make it easy to
cache reusable material. They've got too strong a set of habits
surrounding buying "portal software" from other vendors and kludging
such into place; that approach is totally inconsistent with running
any sort of "tight" network.
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