Advanced Content Delivery, Streaming, and Cloud Services

Chapter 4Efficiency of Caching and Content Delivery in Broadband Access Networks

Gerhard Haßlinger

Deutsche Telekom Technik, Darmstadt, Germany

4.1 Introduction

Content delivery and especially video data transfers are the main drivers for an enormous Internet traffic growth over the past decades. The development of Internet Protocol (IP) traffic is visible in official statistics issued by administrative bodies of several countries, for example, for Australia [1], Germany [2], Hong Kong [3], and in White Paper Series by vendors of routing and measurement equipment, with most well-known reports by Cisco [4] and Sandvine [5]. In comparison of those studies, Figure 4.1 illustrates the common main trend, indicating traffic growth by a factor of the order 100 on a logarithmic scale for fixed IP network traffic over the past decade. Phases of steeper or slower increase rate can be distinguished in a detailed view of the curves, which often correspond to network deployment steps.

Figure 4.1 Trends in IP traffic growth reported from different sources.

Traffic in mobile networks is included in dashed line curves, which currently accounts for only a few percent of the total IP traffic but is catching up at higher increase rates of 50–100% per year, whereas a range of 25–50% annual increase is observed in fixed networks. Measurement results on Deutsche Telekom's IP platform mainly confirm ...