A new white paper, Accelerating the Video Internet, details the challenges the Video Internet is creating for ISPs and content providers. It also looks at how technologies such as P2P caching can help. Here’s the executive summary from Accelerating the Video Internet. (Copyright 2008 by PeerApp Ltd.; used with permission of PeerApp Ltd.)

The Internet is evolving rapidly to a platform for publishing and sharing multimedia content, mostly notably video. Content publishers – from well-known brands such as NBC and Major League Baseball to ‘geeks and grandmas’ on YouTube – are pushing terabytes of video over the Internet, and consumers are consuming it whenever and wherever they want it, from whatever device is convenient.

"Unfortunately, all this video is taking a heavy toll on the network, creating congestion that is slowing broadband performance for all Internet users: video consumers and non-video consumers alike. The congestion problem is putting Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and content providers on a collision course, preventing the success of the Video Internet.

"ISPs are in the critical path of the Video Internet, because they provide the broadband services and last-mile infrastructure through which consumers receive video. ISPs take the blame from consumers when video performance is slow, spotty, or unavailable, but in reality, they have little control over video delivery (because of the limitations of current traffic-management technologies) and little incentive to improve the video experience because it costs them money (for additional bandwidth) without providing offsetting revenue (because most ISPs don’t participate actively in content distribution). Traditional approaches to managing network congestion, including traffic-mitigation technologies and restrictive policies such as byte caps, can’t accommodate the increased consumer demand for video; these technologies work by limiting access to video content instead of improving access.

"This situation is beginning to change, with the availability of new technologies for accelerating the delivery of Internet video that benefit ISPs, content providers and consumers alike." To download the full paper, go here.