Transparent Caching: Cost Center or Business Opportunity?
Transparent caching has taken hold around the world, but in the U.S. it's still in the trial stage, explained moderator Barry Tishgart, vice president for Comcast Cable, at the start of a Content Delivery Summit panel.
"In addition to cost savings, how do you see the business model playing out and how do you think that business model works with or perhaps encroaches on the territory of traditional CDNs?" Tishgart asked.
Stepping up first was Gary Southwell, the chief technology officer for BTI Systems. "If you've put the device as close to the subscriber as possible, that's where you now have the opportunity to turn that into a revenue engine. There's multiple ways you can do that: you don't have to jump in and do this all at once.
"Our thinking is, taking a page out of the mobile model..., why not offer an HD over-the-top service where you actually have the subscriber pay a tier-maybe it's $5, $10 a month-and we provide him a very, very good experience for that content which he's downloading-any form of download, as well as over-the-top streaming of services like Netflix. We think that's a simple way an operator can get into the business.
"Once they have that, they can work on the other side of the two-sided business model, and start working with content providers themselves, and give them back an SLA on the actual experience that's being delivered," Southwell said.
Watch the entire panel discussion below:
Transparent Caching: Cost Center or Business Opportunity?
With the explosion in demand for internet video, many network service providers and broadband operators are exploring the use of transparent caching technologies. While transparent caching deployments have been relatively small to date, many believe there is a business model for service providers to offer cache capacity to content providers-much like today's CDNs. This panel of network service providers and vendors will debate whether transparent caching is purely a cost-saving technology or whether it can in fact be the basis of new business models for network operators.
Moderator: Barry Tishgart, Vice President, Comcast Cable
Speaker: Gary Southwell, CTO, BTI Systems
Speaker: Alan Arolovitch, CTO, PeerApp
Speaker: Prabakar Sundarrajan, VP, Chief Strategist, Content & Media, Juniper Networks
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