Content Delivery Networks

2Context and Orientation

OK. With that preamble and personal contextualization complete, let me now take you through a little deep dive into the broad history of the industry and its technologies. Much of the content relating to live streaming (in particular) here was also covered in my chapter in Advanced Content Delivery, Streaming, and Cloud Services, and I have bought forward some of the key points from there verbatim. However, I have re‐hashed that content somewhat, since it was heavily focused only on live and linear streaming, to include more insights into streaming of on‐demand content too.

While I have a particular personal fascination with, and interest in the challenges live linear distribution presents, I am also strongly aware that the larger part of the market is focused on the immediacy of on‐demand delivery – so much so that still to this day I hear broadcasters and large content service providers describe the Internet as if it was only able to deliver on‐demand content. Interestingly they often view the Internet content models as if they were junior brothers, and simply not going to be able to participate in the live linear distribution that has traditionally been the preserve of broadcasters.

I am well known on the conference circuit for challenging such views. I will discuss my challenges a little as we go, but for now just take it as spoken that I believe all “broadcast” will be simulcast online as “the norm” within just a few years, and with time the commoditization ...