Survey Shows Preference for FTTH

The U.S. FTTH Council has published a survey of U.S. broadband users that shows that there is a strong preference for FTTH over cable modem broadband services. DSL had the least favorable rating for broadband services. FTTH had an even stronger preference for HD TV over FTTH compared to satellite and cable services.

The survey is well worth reading. The results are no surprised but do underscore the technical superiority of FTTH technologies.

Cisco IPTV Traffic Forecast

Cisco has released its latest IPTV traffic forecast that covers 2008 to 2013. It finds that video traffic will be of increasing importance and will account for 80 percent of consumer Internet traffic by 2013. It states that Internet traffic and consumer IP traffic will account for more than 70 percent of total traffic by 2013. This means that more than half the traffic on the network will be video traffic at that time.

This reports shows IP traffic growing at a compound annual growth rate of 40 percent per year over this period. This is a bit below the 50 percent per year that I have been assuming. My assumptions are that video on demand to the TV will grow faster than Cisco's forecast. I have seen very high rates of video on demand utilization where network PVR services are available.

It is clear that IP traffic will continue to grow at a high rate and that video will come to dominate these networks. This will require the architecture of these networks to change to optimize the transport of video traffic.

Comcast Responds about VoIP Service

Comcast stated to the FCC that its own cable telephony VoIP service provides better service because it is carried separately from its Internet cable modem service. It believes that this answers the concerns raised in the FCC's letter on the subject.

This raises interesting issues about carriers using walled gardens to provide VoIP and IPTV services. These walled gardens clearly give the carriers a competitive advantage. I suspect that these walls will be broken down by changes in regulation over time as happened with long distance services in the past.

Cisco Introduces Connected Consumer Electronics Devices

Cisco introduced a line of audio and video connected media systems for consumers. At the same time Cisco introduced Eos software platform that lets content provider create web sites that can provide content to these systems. Cisco also announced a licensing program that allows other consumer device manufacturers to offer devices that can operate in this environment.

This announcement appears to be a major step forward in making the Internet the central source for entertainment media. Internet content will become very important during the next decade. The Internet will give the cable TV, the satellite TV, and the Telco IPTV providers a real run for their money.

Upgrading TCP for the Heavy User

Bob Briscoe from BT wrote an article that appeared in the December 2008 IEEE Spectrum that discusses proposed changes to TCP that would help the Internet cope better with so-called bandwidth hogs. It basically does this by providing a mechanism that allows network routers to discard packets from the heavy users before discarding packets from casual users.

Heavy users will declare their packets to be eligible for discard and a feedback mechanism will be created that will inform core routers of congestion that is occurring in the network so that they can start discarding packets.

This approach should provide better performance to the casual user than they experience today without significantly degrading performance for the heavy user.

You can get more details from Briscoe's web site.

It looks to me that this is a much better approach than the limits being proposed by carriers today. It also seems to resolve the Net Neutrality argument by redefining what fairness means and equalizing the performance of the network to a broad set of users rather than equalizing access to bandwidth.

I question how much these techniques will help in an IP network dominated by TV traffic. TV traffic wants to use a lot of bandwidth and have a high QoS at the same time. An HDTV viewer will not like it if discarding packets from his or her video stream causes visual or audio defects.

Alcatel-Lucent TPSDA 2.0 Provides Better Video Support

Alcatel-Lucent has introduced IPTV application awareness into its Triple Play Services Delivery Architecture (TPSDA) 2.0. It will add flash storage to its edge routers, its switches, and its access nodes that will support fast channel change, packet retransmission, and targeted ad insertion.

• For fast channel change the last few minutes of every multicast channel will be stored in the network and the new channel will be started immediately, eliminating the latency that typically occurs today. Alcatel-Lucent said that HD channel change time will be reduced from several seconds to well under a second.
• For packet retransmission the network will store enough packets to immediately service the packet retransmission request.
• For ad insertion targeted ads will be stored and inserted in the network.

If the service provider uses Alcatel-Lucent access nodes, these functions can be provided in the access network. These functions can also be provided in the Alcatel-Lucent switches or edge routers for service providers using Alcatel-Lucent's TPSDA 2.0 architecture.

Alcatel-Lucent has also discussed plans to increase the amount of storage in these network elements in order to support rewind TV and video on demand delivery.

TPSDA 2.0 can support these functions for service providers using access nodes from other manufacturers by implementing them in the switches and edge routers.

Microsoft has not announced any support for these network capabilities.

This approach will give service providers new flexibility in managing the bandwidth demands from an IPTV service, especially as more and more on demand and personalized services are provided. I think the flexibility that it gives in placing storage in the network will improve the ability of service providers to optimize their networks.

I think that this solution is a good one for the next several years. I believe over the long run that TelcoTV and other video traffic will need to be pushed down to the optical layer. There will be too much of it for packet switches to handle.

IPTV 3D To Push Bandwidth Requirements

Light Reading published a keynote interview at IBC given by Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg discussing the resurgence of 3D. He said that all of the major studios have 3D projects under way. He also said that the quality of the 3D is much higher than in the past. Digital 3D is expected to be widely rolled out in 2009, when an estimated 2,500 theatre screens will be equipped with the technology.

I saw a compelling 3D HDTV demonstration by NHK at NAB. They told me that this is already available in Japan over satellite. If 3D becomes an important part of IPTV service, it is likely that the bandwidth required to support it will be too much for VDSL. I believe that FTTH will be required to support 3D.