Network

TelecomView has just published a report called Network Strategies for TelcoTV services. We found that TelcoTV service providers are moving from simple broadcast services to more and more services that use on demand techniques.

The problem that these service providers face as they make this change is that it will fundamentally change the nature of the traffic on their networks. Broadcast channels are transported using multicast technologies that send only one copy of each channel down each link independent of the number of viewers.

On demand technologies require that a unique video stream be sent across the network to each viewer, which significantly increases the load on the network. In fact, the unicast load from video on demand, NPVR, and advanced advertising services will cause video traffic to quickly dominate these networks.

Our conclusion is that TelcoTV service providers will have to move their video traffic off of their IP and Ethernet networks and on to a non blocking optical distribution network to be able to support Telco TV services, especially with the addition of NPVR and advanced advertising services.

You can get information about this report by clicking here.

You can order a free white paper that discusses our findings (as well as other free white papers) by clicking here.

I have been concerned about the load that video traffic will put on the networks that support TelcoTV networks for a long time. The recent announcement of new optically based systems from Sun Microsystems showed a new approach that became the inspiration for this report.

Most TelcoTV service providers are not thinking about this today, but they will be before long.