By Amit Eshet, John Ulm, Uzi Cohen, Carol Ansley, ARRIS
With the availability of new technology, namely home gateways with 16 or more DS tuners and CCAP platforms, the transition to a managed IP video service is now becoming feasible and cost-effective. The biggest challenge remaining is the bandwidth; especially with the continual growth of high-speed data service leading to constant contention among the services for the limited spectrum resources available. This paper provides a window into the viewing habits in 2013. We show that linear content is still the number one service with the number of peak time viewers at over 75%. We compare the efficiencies of switched multicast, and unicast (native for ABR delivery) approaches. Furthermore, to give indication of the transition period to a full IP service, we further present the significant benefits of multicast even at small groups of subscribers. We conclude by introducing a Multicast assisted ABR architecture that offers the benefits of multicast as well as building upon a single infrastructure to enable an IP video service to all devices in and outside the home