Quote:
Originally Posted by Matth
If it was IPTV, it would have to be multicast - and I'd guess the overhead would quite likely be higher than for the existing multiplexed streams
|
I would imagine that it would be IPTV - but only the channels being watched on a given node would be present. For example, there might be only a few people on a given nodal area that are watching a particular channel, so it would be multicast. As soon as that number drops to zero, the channel is temporarily removed from the multicast stream to that node. Dynamic edge-QAM would reprovision the bandwith at that moment for broadband, providing a temporary speed boost.
Part of me thinks this might not happen quite how I'm imagining it however, because if you take it to an extreme, the variation in bandwith available at any one time on a single nodal area might be such that it becomes difficult to sell a certain fixed speed broadband package (as being that speed) since it varies so much depending on how many downstream channels are being used for multicast services. The worst case would be that everyone on the node is watching a different channel at the same time.
You would either have to overpromise and then allow the B/W to drop as more TV channels are assigned multicast bandwidth, or give more Internet bandwidth than advertised up front and reserve some for TV - but that's effectively what happens now by having fixed multiplexes.