Clearing content traffic jams

Avoid Internet traffic congestion, conserve bandwidth, improve the end-user experience - service providers delivering broadband media content face a host of obstacles in a less-than-pure broadband world. And don't forget reducing operational costs and expanding services beyond mere "plumbing" to make up for the margin squeeze on the access side.

But as announcements at Networld + Interop in Las Vegas indicated, a host of technologies and solutions in caching, streaming, load balancing and overall traffic management continually are developed to ease the pain. And why not? The worldwide market for content delivery and distribution products and services is expected to grow to $6 billion by 2004, according to Market Internet Research Group.

The digital broadcast network is one new area content delivery businesses and their providers want to exploit. Converging digital broadcast networks with the land-based Internet to enhance the delivery of streaming video and audio and live webcasts is the mission of media router provider SkyStream Networks. Its products deliver streaming media and other Internet content to ISP edge servers using local digital TV signals or nationwide satellite feeds (see figure).

"In TV, reliability is just a given," said Bethany Mayer, director of product marketing at SkyStream. "Bandwidth isn't a problem; it only matters whether you're in the footprint or not."

Besides letting ISPs circumvent congestion on the Internet backbone, SkyStream's architecture enables broadcasters to reclaim bandwidth for new services. That's because SkyStream's patent-pending software uses "null packets" - the 2% to 15% of the wasted MPEG video bitstream - to inject Internet and other high-speed IP data into the digital broadcast signal, Mayer said.

At N+I, SkyStream announced contracts with Edgix, a multicaster of content for ISPs, and Wavexpress, a digital TV broadcaster. Edgix, a satellite-based, content-delivery service, will deploy SkyStream's DBN-24 source media routers to offer datacasting services to service providers' points of presence. Wavexpress will use SkyStream's DBN-35 ATSC Media Routers in TV stations to transmit video, software, music and Internet content to consumers on digital TVs and PC. The content will be delivered in parallel with regularly scheduled programming.

Covad Communications and Real Networks also are using SkyStream's routers in a joint trial, which uses satellite technology as a backbone to deliver Real Networks' video services through Covad DSL access multiplexers to DSL customers.

Entera, a developer of standards-based content delivery software, introduced two new products - TeraEDGE, the first commercial Linux-based stream and Web caching software; and TeraCAST Pro, a software package for small webcasters that combines a streaming media server, a compression editor and a live video streaming tool.

TeraEDGE is designed to solve the problems of video and audio quality and reduced bandwidth limitations, said Richard De Soto, Entera's vice president of marketing. The product's "dynamic reflecting" technology enables TeraEDGE to recognize the closest connection for a live stream.

"With DSL access prevalent in major metro areas, streaming video is going to be part and parcel of how to compete if you're going to have an edge for electronic commerce," De Soto said. Service providers already want to accomplish more than just keeping eyeballs glued to a site with video and audio clips.

"About 50% or more of applications are going to be able to be put at the edge of the network," said Ruann Ernst, chairman and CEO of Digital Island. But providing distributed e-commerce and applications is a long way off.

"There's still a lot of discovery and art going on," said Larry Lang, vice president of service provider marketing for Cisco Systems. "The market has yet to develop a full catalog of techniques."