In a recent, Feb 12th 2010 interview with Sian Baldwin, BT Wholesale Director of Broadband and Content Services, she describes how local ISP's are struggling to cope with end-users demand for online video. As if the last-mile issues for those ISP's using cable and, or DSL were not enough, now access to the actual content on the other side of the network is the issue.
BT of course has been building a new FTTH network throughout the UK to address the last-mile piece and now they are creating their own CDN - Content Distribution Network - to be the single source for all video content for their own networks as well as all that is bound for the competitive last-mile ISP's.
From the interview and article in Global Telecoms Business:
"We are fast approaching what we call the 'grumpiness triangle'," says a BT spokesman. "ISPs are grumpy because the growth in video increases their backhaul costs and so they traffic shape. This makes end users grumpy because they don't want to wait to watch their favourite television programme. And, in turn, this makes the content creators grumpy because viewers can't enjoy their programmes as they intended."
BT Wholesale is hoping that ISPs will not be tempted to build their own CDNs -- warning that they will then need to arrange interconnection with all the broadcasters and the content aggregators. "We can provide a single point of entry," she (Baldwin) adds.
Having the best (fiber) network and also the content puts BT in the driver's seat for sure. BT and its customers are not listed amongst the Grumpy as a result.
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