Keynote

Considerable evidence supports the claim that most of the traffic over IP networks is video, with the volume growing rapidly. It is also increasingly likely that most video delivery in the future will be over IP networks, with the shift away from broadcast and cable already well under way. For service providers who operate IP networks, these dual trends present both challenges and opportunities. The challenges arise from issues such as management of growing traffic demand while maintaining appropriate quality of experience for users, and the opportunities are for service providers to play a relevant and valuable role in video, using their networks as more than "dumb pipes". When one examines closely the video delivery technologies of today, it turns out to be a surprisingly fragmented landscape, even as IP becomes the common infrastructure. There are different architectural approaches for enterprise and service provider networks; different technologies used for "linear" (live) and "nonlinear" (e.g., video on demand) content; and differences in the delivery of content in "over-the-top" environments (e.g., Hulu, Netflix, YouTube) versus managed environments, such as the IPTV services offered currently by many broadband service providers. Historically, the high bandwidth and processing requirements for digital video have led to every video environment being treated as a "special case", but ever-growing CPU and link speeds coupled with new video delivery technologies are rapidly changing that situation. In this talk we examine a number of recent technological developments in the delivery of networked video. One such development is the trend towards the use of HTTP and "adaptive" streaming techniques. Initially targeted towards over-the-top, nonlinear content, adaptive streaming is quickly showing promise for live content and managed networks as well. Another is the use of "cloud-based" capabilities that are being proposed to enable new viewing experiences such as multi- screen viewing and various forms of "Social TV". A third is the development of network architectures in which content is a first-class citizen-so-called content-centric networks. These technology trends have important consequences for the network. Clearly network bandwidths have to increase to meet the demand, while the shift towards watching any content at any time means that simple multicast delivery is insufficient to use bandwidth efficiently. Caching within the network and mechanisms to ensure a quality viewing experience which is more than just network-layer quality of service are likely to be required. Service providers are uniquely well positioned to cache content close to users and to provide high quality video. We will examine the opportunities for the network to enhance the delivery of video, as well as the overall benefits of a more unified approach to video over IP. These benefits extend beyond the simplification that comes from a common infrastructure, to include the enabling of rapid innovation in applications and services.