It could be the most significant change in cable television delivery since the dawn of satellite programming distribution more than 35 years ago. Cable providers are looking to use content delivery networks (CDNs) to eventually deliver all of their video content.
What’s a CDN? For cable, a CDN is a way to deliver programming through a centralized fiber backbone network that relies upon Internet protocol (IP) technology. CDNs provide the foundation for cable to stream all linear and on-demand programming in IP video formats, which can be encoded and adapted for delivery to any broadband-connected set-top box, tablet, smart TV, smartphone or other device. Network traffic is managed from a centralized network operations center (NOC) and regional data centers.
Comcast and Time Warner Cable already have established CDNs while other multiple system operators are exploring whether to create their own or join together in a so-called federated CDN or CDN Interconnect (CDNI).
CDNs could provide another landmark method of cable distribution, one that rivals the advent of satellite-delivered programming that started when HBO beamed the Thrilla in Manila fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in September 1975. Over the ensuing five to ten years, most of today’s major cable network brands launched by using satellite delivery, including CNN, C-SPAN, Discovery, Disney Channel, ESPN, MTV, Playboy, Showtime, and superstation TBS.
CDNs eventually could reduce the industry’s reliance on satellite delivery for programming and provide a launchpad for more Internet video, cloud-based programming guides and interactive applications. By using CDNs, cable can provide customers with more content, better navigation and greater interactivity, anytime and on any device, for a better user experience.
Learn more:
The Language of CDNs
Cable Deploys CDNs – and Looks Ahead
Just to put this report in perspective. The entire concept of CDN has its roots at the cable TV industry.
ReplyDeleteAkamai is the company that first pioneered the concept of Content Delivery Networks
(CDNs) [see: Dilley, J., Maggs, B., Parikh, J., Prokop, H., Sitaraman, R., and Weihl, B. Globally Distributed Content Delivery. IEEE Internet Computing, 6(5):50-58, 2002].
Akamai's beginnings lie in a challenge posed by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in early 1995. The father of the Web foresaw the congestion that is now very familiar to Internet users, and he challenged colleagues at MIT to invent a fundamentally new and better way to deliver Internet content.
MIT Professor of Applied Mathematics Tom Leighton, who had an office down the hall from Dr. Berners-Lee, was intrigued by the challenge. He solicited the help of graduate student Danny Lewin, to tackle the problem. They developed a set of breakthrough algorithms for intelligently routing and replicating content over a large network of distributed servers — without relying on centralized servers typically used by Web site owners today. Shortly after they began building the business plan that would lead to Akamai's inception.
Akamai obtained an exclusive license to certain intellectual property from MIT, and development efforts began in the fall of 1998.
Before his studies at MIT, Danny worked at IBM's research laboratory in Haifa, Israel,
while simultaneously completing two undergraduate degrees at the Technion, Israel's premier technology university. At IBM Danny worked at the VLSI department and was responsible for the development and support of the company's Genesys system, a processor verification tool. At the IBM lab, Danny shared a room with few other students that worked on a project under the Multimedia department. This project pioneered the concepts of broadband networks (cable modems) and multimedia distribution. These concepts were demonstrated over the local Cable TV (HFC) network in Haifa. Danny was enthusiastic about the work of his colleague students and asked to move to this project, but becaue of his main role and success at the VLSI department, his request was eventually denied. Shortly after he left to MIT.
In late 1998 and early 1999, a group of experienced Internet business professionals began to join the Akamai founding team. Most notably, Paul Sagan who was a former President of Time Inc. New Media, a founder of Road Runner cable modem service, became chief operating officer and eventually president of Akamai Technologies.
On September 11, 2001, Akamai lost Danny Lewin aboard the American Airlines flight 11 that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.
Amit Kleinmann
amitbkl@yahoo.com
Thank you for this interesting history about CDNs and cable.
DeleteCraig Leddy