 | Issue: | Asia-Pacific I 2008 |
| Article no.: | 6 | |
| Topic: | Video – today’s network challenge | |
| Author: | David Tolub | |
| Title: | President | |
| Organisation: | Oversi | |
| PDF size: | 196KB |
About author
David Tolub is President of Oversi, a provider of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) caching and content delivery solutions. Prior to Oversi, Mr Tolub served as Vice President and Manager of the Mobile Handset Vendor Division at SanDisk responsible for the division’s worldwide activities. Previously, Mr Tolub was VP of Marketing at NICE Systems and a Director of Europe for the DSP Group. David Tolub has an MSA from Boston University and an MSc of Electrical Engineering from the Technion Institute, Haifa, Israel.
Article abstract
The Internet is fast becoming a ‘Videonet’ , dominated by video applications. The Videonet, increasingly driven by Peer-to-Peer (P2P) traffic, has over 200 million users worldwide. Demand for P2P and video is overwhelming service provider infrastructures and leading to poor-quality service and network bottlenecks. To support this demand and prepare for the next wave of Internet TV – offering hundreds or thousands of ‘channels’ competing with traditional broadcast – and video-on-demand, service providers must turn to new types of network solutions.
Full Article
Video is taking over the Internet. It’s a fact. The popularity of online user-generated video content, notably YouTube, has created massive Internet traffic transferred over the Web. However, that’s just half the story. The Internet, or ‘Videonet’, is driven by P2P (Peer-to-Peer) applications with over 200 million users worldwide. Based on existing user infrastructures, P2P is one of the most popular user applications on the net. According to recent research from ipoque, an Internet traffic management provider, P2P is still producing more Internet traffic then all other applications, with video making up most of the content. The average share of P2P file sharing varies from 49 per cent in the Middle East to 83 per cent in Eastern Europe. According to our own surveys conducted across a cross-section of installations in Asia-Pacific, EMEA (Europe Middle East Africa) and Latin America, P2P is in concurrent use by around 40-50 per cent of the population at any given time. P2P traffic consumes vast amounts of bandwidth, creating congestion on international and interconnect lines, backbones and access networks. Due to a strong dichotomy between the symmetrical nature of P2P traffic and the asymmetrical nature of broadband access networks, P2P traffic quickly consumes the limited capacity of users’ access links. This then affects the performance of other applications, such as voice over IP, surfing and gaming. Most broadband networks are just not built for the huge pressure this creates. This is just the beginning. The emergence of Internet TV platforms, such as Joost™, JumpTV, Babelgum™ and PPLive, create a new bandwidth challenge for service providers, which is expected to surpass the challenges already posed by P2P and HTTP video. Internet TV providers are making significant inroads, offering new TV and video services to a tech-savvy market. Soon everyone will be able to choose their own TV no matter where they’re located, with access to tens of thousands of different channels. P2P is now a legitimate, economical and effective means for producers and content owners to distribute premium content to end users. Aware of the advantages of P2P as an Internet distribution channel, media companies, including BBC Worldwide, Paramount, Viacom, Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox, are partnering with P2P players to deliver content over the net. The bandwidth costs associated with this increase in video and P2P traffic creates a real risk to existing service provider business models. This particularly applies in the Asia-Pacific region where international bandwidth costs are high but Internet subscription revenues remain flat. How can service providers cope with this demand without investing huge amounts of money in bandwidth upgrades? To do nothing is an unrealistic business strategy. It runs the risk of alienating customers and increasing customer churn. Customers will simply swap their loyalty to other service providers who are able to offer greater bandwidth capabilities. Based on current trends, existing networks will not be able to cope with the increasing bandwidth requirements, leading to degradation in their quality of service. A new study on bandwidth usage by Nemertes Research predicts Internet outages by 2010 due to the growing demand for Internet services combined with insufficient infrastructure investment. One solution for service providers is to make improvements to their service by upgrading their connections to the Internet backbone. This can help them improve speeds for their subscribers and allow them to expand in the future. However, this is an expensive and short-term solution. The Nemertes report claims that service providers need to invest from US$42 billion to US$55 billion in the US to meet the need for broadband capacity. In current networks, the pent-up demand is usually larger than practical plans for upgrades so any extra capacity is likely to be consumed immediately. With the spiralling demand for video over the net, service providers could face insurmountable costs without actually alleviating the pressure on their network. Another solution is traffic shapers or DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) equipment. Over the past couple of years, many service providers around the world have been turning to traffic shaping and DPI systems to prioritize specific applications or services. Because the traffic is limited, the non-prioritized traffic is dropped out of the system. Traffic shapers reduce the pressure on existing network infrastructures, improve the performance of non-P2P applications and reduce traffic costs. Traffic shapers can also be used at certain times of the day to ensure better quality of service during business hours for clients mostly concerned with HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) traffic. Service providers can then offer a competitive edge by guaranteeing specific service levels to key customers. However, there is a drawback in terms of customer satisfaction. Traffic shapers can have a negative effect on the performance of specific P2P applications, such as video downloads. Customers expect a good-quality experience from their Internet provider and quickly become frustrated with poor service. There’s also the legal issue of net neutrality (the belief that all content should be treated equally), which is a particularly hot topic in the US at the moment. There are other limitations, too. Traffic shapers are not effective for real-time services, such as HTTP video and Internet TV, because they can’t scale the bandwidth down without interrupting the live service. There’s also no way of differentiating between types of P2P services, so popular content from broadcasters may end up being blocked. This will become a real issue for service providers as Internet TV becomes more prevalent. In addition, users may turn to encryption to avoid the identification of P2P files. P2P users are usually highly sophisticated and encryption is increasingly common in the P2P world. Strong encryption makes it impossible for traffic shaping systems to identify what files are being transferred. One technology that is addressing the bandwidth issue is caching. Caching solutions enable service providers to manage their network traffic in a central location without requiring additional equipment or configuration changes to the existing network. Located in the network core, caching platforms provide an effective way to relieve the pressure on existing infrastructures. Delivering additional bandwidth over the existing infrastructure, the cache reduces the load on interconnect lines, backbones and access networks. Located out of the main traffic path, the cache fits into the existing network topology without affecting network reliability. By working as a buffer, the cache meets users’ demands for bandwidth without taking vital resources from the limited uplink networks. The cache, nearest to the user, delivers the extra bandwidth, clearing any uplink congestion, accelerating P2P traffic and improving the user experience. With no need for simultaneous uploads and downloads, the cache then ensures better performance on all user applications. Caching solutions also complement traffic shaping equipment. Service providers benefit from the bandwidth savings generated by the traffic shaper without compromising on the customer experience. The joint solution enables service providers to increase their ARPU (average revenue per user) – a critical component of any broadband network strategy. Control of bandwidth supplies means that service providers can offer their customers tiered services or a range of Service Level Agreements at different price levels. Broadband packages can relate directly to the user experience for both P2P and HTTP video. By actually experiencing the difference in service, customers can be motivated to purchase and upgrade to a higher speed broadband package. Using the cache, users can benefit from the maximum bit rate allowed by their package, regardless of the state of the other peers, or the status of the content itself (i.e. popularity, long-tail etc.). This capability gives service providers a strong advantage over their competitors, which is attractive to new customers and maintains customer stickiness. Like P2P, which is inherently scalable, P2P grid-based caching solutions are fully scalable, supporting unlimited amounts of data and growing number of users. There’s also no issue regarding encryption – the cache simply supports new and encrypted protocols. The service provider role in the new premium content delivery ecosystem is now under scrutiny. By implementing new technology, such as caching-based content delivery platforms, service providers will be able to benefit from the new revenue streams created by digital media and monetize Internet traffic. Options include charging P2PTV networks for guaranteeing level of service and benefiting from local and personalized advertising opportunities created through the cache. Service providers will also have the option of offering a range of tiered services to their customers, based on different levels of premium content delivery. Using the cache and popular users P2P clients (or branded clients), service providers will be able to offer higher quality delivery and a greater choice of high-quality, ‘Over-The-Top’ (OTT), video services to their subscribers. The impact of digital media on broadband networks is just starting to take effect. Service providers need to make sure that their networks are ready for the next wave of Internet video before it’s too late.
