TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
edge caches closer to the end user, while also owning the underlying network. “Akamai has a distributed solution with
equipment co-located in a lot of opera- tors’ networks, but they are not necessarily at the edge of an operator’s network,” says Eli Fuchs, product line manager for CDS/CDN at Cisco Systems. In contrast, an operator could extend the CDN to the network edge where traffic from rela- tively few households is aggregated, making for even greater efficiency and cost savings. For now, though, operators’ CDNs typically have their equipment located at major points of presence (POP) and not at the thousands of edge central offices that aggregate access traffic. In North America, a cable operator has
30 or 40 video hub offices—a typical first stage deployment. A similar model applies to telcos. BT Wholesale is looking to use its CDN to promote its broadband network as an attractive alternative tele- vision distribution platform. “We started with our content platform to support on-demand [TV] consumption, but our end-game is to establish a set of very rich services as part of a broadband network,” says Simon Orme, strategy director, content services, at BT Wholesale. BT’s Content Connect CDN spans 20
POPs across the UK. Deciding where content is placed is a trade-off between the network efficiencies that result and ensuring that there are sufficient users to merit the economies of scale for popular content storage. “The way we have constructed the architecture is that as traffic grows we can continue to deploy [content] deeper and deeper [towards the end user],” says Orme. This will coincide with BT distributing its broadband remote access servers beyond its 20 POPs. Cable operators are using CDN tech-
nology to deliver video to various devices such as PCs, handsets and tablets. Time Warner Cable has launched a live TV service that delivers 30 high-definition cable networks to an iPad. “That is an http-based video delivery technology and to deliver that cost effectively they are using CDN technology,” says Krishnan at Verivue. BT is pitching its CDN marketing
May 2011
www.totaltele.com
Highest capacity international Internet routes, 2006-2010 1,600 1,400 1,200 1,000 800 600 400 200 0
n Amsterdam - London n London - New York n Frankfurt - Paris n London - Paris n Amsterdam - Frankfurt
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Source: TeleGeography
‘It is very hard to fi nd a major operator that isn’t committed to some kind of CDN strategy’
Total global CDN revenues forecast
6 5 4 3 2 1 0
n Telco n Wholesale n Pure Play
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014 Source: Yankee Group
Percentage share of total global CDN revenues n Telco n Wholesale n Pure Play
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Source: Yankee Group 9
Percentage of revenues
Revenues (US$ billions)
Capacity (Gbps)
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