[ NNSquad ] Re: The Once and Future King: Multicast looks to (finally) be the future of television.

[Wes Felter <wesley@felter.org>]

nnsquad@ecgincc.com wrote:
> this article from cringley may explain some isps behavior:
>
> http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20071221_003697.html

...

> Both Comcast and Verizon are rapidly rolling out IP multicast, as I am
> sure most big cable and telephone ISPs are. 

Switched digital video (SDV) appears to be a simpler way to solve the 
cable spectrum crunch because it requires fewer changes to the cable 
boxes. But really, it doesn't matter how digital cable works under the 
hood - either IPTV w/ multicast or SDV will free up spectrum that 
cablecos can use for Internet access. (Uh oh, did I just accidentally 
mention the Isenberg Proposal?)

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=122733&;
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=cdn&doc_id=135458
http://www.lightreading.com/blog.asp?blog_sectionid=419&doc_id=139512

Also, it's worth noting that ISPs run mutiple disjoint IP networks. For 
example, AFAIK U-Verse has two different IP networks carried over two 
ATM VCs: the Internet and the IPTV net. The IPTV net uses multicast, but 
who cares since it's a closed network. Will ISPs enable multicast on the 
*Internet*? And will customers be allowed to *create* groups or just 
join existing ones? These are the interesting questions.

But my favorite part (and the only part really relevant to this list) is:

> Multicast also solves (from the cable company's perspective) the "problem" of P2P because they'll give multicast addresses to paid content and content from movie studios and traditional TV networks that PAY for this privilege, saying that this is a preferred alternative to P2P, which will continue to be traffic shaped.

Yeah, just like people stopped downloading music and movies for free 
when the iTunes store came out.

For a more technical look at multicast in cable networks, check out this 
article from 2005: 
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk828/technologies_case_study0900aecd802e2ce2.shtml

To find out whether you can talk to the MBone: 
http://www.multicasttech.com/mt/index2002.php3

Wes Felter - wesley@felter.org