Paving the way for Broadband Content Delivery

One of the reasons it's so hard to identify killer applications for broadband local access is that we tend to look for something new, different and innovative in the application itself. Innovative applications are only part of the solution space. Broadband local access, like Internet technology, is all about delivery. What's delivered-content-doesn't have to be radically different from the content delivered through other means and media today. But if content delivery is more efficient, more economical, more convenient, or more synergistic with life at Internet pace-in other words, if the innovation is in the delivery itself-then perhaps broadband local access services can grow to ubiquity without that elusive, single, killer application.

Through an advisory board relationship I have with Villa Montage, a broadband access technology company, I was fortunate to learn about two service trials that suggest that carriers are seeking innovative ways to meld integrated IP services and broadband local access-DSL and wireless-to deliver professional, consumer and entertainment content.

So we're all on the same page, professional content includes applications like corporate LAN access and teleconferencing. Consumer content includes shopping, surfing, and some forms of entertainment (optimized streamed media). Entertainment content includes video-on-demand, photography, and broadcast video.

The companies involved in both service trials are at such an early stage of design and deployment that they agreed to let me write about the trials, but declined to be identified by name in this column.

One trial, still under development, will explore the viability of DSL as a delivery method for a video rental service. In this trial, the service provider will enter into a relationship with a studio or video rental company to distribute movies for a fee.

The service provider will install a multi-services application switch as a complement to its existing broadband infrastructure. This switch supports a reliable multicast service, and traffic, subscriber, and content-partner management functions needed to provide service. The service provider installs an integrated access device (IAD) in a DSL customer's residence. This device is pre-loaded with about a dozen movies.

The family views the movie menu on their TV screen with a special remote control that interfaces with the IAD. A selected movie is transmitted to the TV from the IAD over Ethernet, and the IAD records movies watched and forwards this information for billing to the service providers. New movies are uploaded to the IAS as a background task, perhaps over the course of an entire week prior to making these available for selection; in this manner, even modest bandwidth (384 Kbps) is sufficient to deliver DVD-quality movies to the home.

Broadband wireless and DSL service providers in particular should be interested in this application because it can be deployed over access rates as low as 384 Kbps, and because it lets you to bundle a video service with your high speed data service, and "voice over". With this service portfolio, any CLEC can compete with cable (and telephone) companies that can bundle all or combinations of these residential "pay per view" services over a cable passing (and on a single bill). Note how scalable, shared access can play an important role in this service-eventually, different household members could select and watch different movies from PCs and multiple TVs.

A second trial looks to expand the services portfolio of a fixed wireless network that currently delivers community access television and high-speed Internet access to a very large residential subscribership. This very ambitious trial will attempt to leverage IP as a platform for professional, consumer, and entertainment applications. It's not focused entirely on video rental, but will include other services, including certain types of real-time feeds-stock tickers and live broadcasts of quarterly earnings reports from brokerage subscriber services, live concert broadcasts, informational audio (e.g., NPR)-as well as movie, music, digital photograph distribution.

IP VPN will be used to accommodate proprietary data distribution among communities of interest and e-business partners as well. The service provider intends to use IP multicast and IP quality of service for efficient bandwidth utilization, and will try different caching strategies (IAS as well as head-end) to determine how to optimize wireless bandwidth and deliver a high-quality end user experience. Content will be delivered to TV's, set top boxes, PCs, and audio systems, initially over Ethernet via an IAS, but the hope is to eventually deliver directly using wireless technology.

CLECs heavily invested in Internet technology should be encouraged to push the envelope and trial new services using IP. IP is delivering on ATM's promise of an integrated services delivery infrastructure. If you believe, as I do, that society has embraced Internet access and hungers for more than chatting, browsing, and MP3 downloads, then take a hard look at the way content is delivered over other media, and begin thinking of ways you can deliver it more conveniently or efficiently over your IP and broadband local access network.

Video rental is one good example of the kind of service people are willing to buy. Music presents another interesting opportunity. Napster demonstrates people, especially young people, have an insatiable desire to find and listen to new music. Cable companies deliver digital stereo channels; nice, but I would love to have, and would pay for, an Internet jukebox in my home that's automatically filled and refreshed with music each individual in my family enjoys. Is there a way to successfully (and legally) marry the notions of music sharing and broadband? Certainly. And profitably so. And I believe this is true for an enormous range of content. It's not the content, but how innovative you can be in delivering it.

David Piscitello is president of Core Competence, Inc., a network consulting firm and founder of The Internet Security Conference.