1Network Distribution Capacity and Content-Pipe Gap

Abstract — The growth of video content and diversifica-tion of content-sharing methods in the Internet lead to an exciting range of new problems in networking, communica-tions, and signal processing. They range from fundamental theory and analytic models to practical design and industry deployment. This informal note briefly discusses some of the opportunities arising out of the “content-pipe ” gap and presents some of the fundamental problems in distributing content over a network. I. CONTENT-PIPE GAP Networks are increasingly used for sharing content, especially video content, both copyrighted and user-generated ones. They shake many basic assumptions on how networks should be designed and used. For example, the asymmetry between uplink and downlink data rates is no longer appropriate, the “horizontal decomposition” into access-metro-core networks may be inefficient if both the content producers and consumers reside in the same access network, and the “vertical decomposition” into application layer and all the layers below it needs to be re-examined. In this fast evolving landscape of sharing content by networking, there are those who generate and distribute content, e.g., media companies who own video and mu-sic, end-users who post video online, operators of con-tent distribution network (CDN), and operators of peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing systems. Then there are those who provide and operate the network, e.g., Internet Service Providers (ISP), network infrastructure vendors, network management software vendors, and municipalities and enterprises running their own networks. On the one hand, the content-providers seek the best way to distribute content, through technologies including multimedia sig-nal processing as well as content caching, relaying, and sharing. They often take the network as just a means of transportation. On the other hand, the pipe-providers seek the best way to meet end-user requirements, through technologies including those that manage resources on each link, between links, and end-to-end. They often take the content as just bits to transport between given nodes in the network. We believe that the interactions between the content and the pipes, whether by design or by default, is an important field to investigate. Issues involving the content-pipe gap can be abou