IP TV Bandwidth Demand: Multicast and Channel Surfing

Author

Smith, Donald E.

Author_Institution

Verizon Lab., Walfham

fYear

2007

fDate

6-12 May 2007

Firstpage

2546

Lastpage

2550

Abstract

IP networks may soon become a delivery mechanism for broadcast television content. Multicast can reduce the steady state bandwidth demand on network links from one stream per viewer to one stream per watched program. However, channel surfing at commercial breaks can periodically increase the bandwidth demand. In the channel change mechanism we study, surfers leave multicast groups and receive unicast streams at higher than usual bandwidth. This paper builds a mathematical model to determine the net bandwidth demand of multicast and surfing during commercial breaks. In one example, we find that the peak demand during a commercial break is twice the steady state multicast demand.

Keywords

IP networks; multicast communication; telecommunication links; television broadcasting; IP TV bandwidth demand; IP networks; broadcast television content; channel change mechanism; channel surfing; commercial break; delivery mechanism; mathematical model; multicast surfing; network links; steady state bandwidth demand; steady state multicast demand; stream per viewer; stream per watched program; unicast streams; Bandwidth; IP networks; Optical fiber networks; Passive optical networks; Peer to peer computing; Steady-state; Streaming media; TV broadcasting; Telecommunication traffic; Video sharing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

INFOCOM 2007. 26th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications. IEEE

Conference_Location

Anchorage, AK

ISSN

0743-166X

Print_ISBN

1-4244-1047-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/INFCOM.2007.318

Filename

4215900