content delivery

AT&T Adds New CDN, Exec to Manage

Doug Mohney — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:22:52 -0400

AT&T has announced a suite of content delivery and digital media solutions to help deliver and distribute video and rich media to the trinity of screens: PC, TV, and mobile device. IDC says the CDN market totaled nearly $900 million in 2007 and expected to grow "significantly" in the future.

To head up AT&T's newly created content business unit, Cathy Martine has been appointed executive vice president--Content Distribution. Martine is a long-term AT&T employee who previously headed up its Internet Telephony division.

The new Digital Media Solutions portfolio includes content distribution and management, broadcast video and even digital signage solutions. To facilitate this move, AT&T has cut strategic relationships with ExendMedia, Qumu and Stratacache; ExtendMedia provides digital content services software, Qumu is a software company that enables organizations to easily capture, manage, publish and distribute live and on-demand video content while leveraging existing IT infrastructure, while Stratacache is a software and services company that provides both multi-platform software and appliance based technology for the delivery of rich media applications on a distributed WAN or Internet/intranet powered enterprise.

AT&T is bragging of nearly $70 million in network infrastructure and development by year end to support its digital media capabilities across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Once the software expertise of ExtendMedia, Qumu, and Stratacache are integrated with its own capabilities, AT&T expects to offer companies one-stop shopping and simplified network-based solutions to encode, deliver, manage and support video and multimedia files.

For more
- AT&T announces new CDN Services, EVP Martine

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P2P: Friend of Carriers, Savior of Online Video?

Doug Mohney — Thu, 22 May 2008 22:35:57 -0400

Streaming Media East, NYC--Over the past two months, peer-to-peer (P2P) networking has gone from the source of all evil to being a miracle cure for distributing video if a panel of speakers at Streaming Media East are to be believed. It won't be IPTV, but P2PTV, if service providers and P2P companies can cooperate together.

Currently, "closed" P2P networks account for at least three-fourths of upstream bandwidth on the Internet and at least half the downstream bandwidth of service providers, said Marty Lafferty, CEO of the Distributed Computing Industry Association. The problems have resulted from closed P2P schemes working to evade ISP monitoring and network optimization efforts.

Lafferty says the sea change has occurred by combining openness to P2P networking, allowing carriers to see what sort of traffic is going on and enabling them to fine tune network transfers to reduce router hop count--how far you have to move traffic--and keep copying local rather than crossing service provider boundaries.

P4P--Proactive network Provider Participation for P2P--technology has already demonstrated drastic improvements in bandwidth and network utilization. Verizon testing with Pando Networks earlier this year demonstrated bandwidth usage decreasing more than 50 percent. Other benefits included faster download speeds for users and much shorter router hops to move data (from an average of five hops to less than one). Verizon is a believer and says P4P technology can help scale their network and help deliver more video.

Comcast will be triaing Pando's technology later this year and has also invested in Seattle-based GridNetworks, a startup that delivers high-definition video using P2P technology.

For more:
- Lafferty's P2P presentation slides from Streaming Media East

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YouTube’s Passage to India

Doug Mohney — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:09:24 -0400

YouTube has launched a local Indian version at www.youtube.co.in. YouTube India features a localized home page plus search functions to allow users to discover the most popular and relevant videos in India. Over time, the site is expected to have an entirely local flavor and feature content and functionality most desired by Indian users.

Indians are crazy about home-grown content and movies, as demonstrated by the booming Bollywood industry. YouTube India is opening up a whole universe of possibilities for aspiring local filmmakers and actors to share their work with an appreciative local audience.

YouTube India will also have professional content; the venture has already arranged partnerships with national businesses and organizations such as UTV, NDTV, India TV, Zoom TV, Rajshri Films, Eros Entertainment, IIFA, the Ministry of Tourism, IIT Delhi, and KrishCricket.

For more:
- TechTree India’s YouTube India is Launched
- The Hindu’s YouTube now has an Indian incarnation

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