Data Caching Standard P2200 – IGIC
November 3, 2011, International Gaming, Innovation Conference, Orange, CA–William Fisher from Quicksilver Software and Yehuda Hahn from SanDisk discussed a new standard for caching data to change the experience for mobile users. This standard will change the network loading profile and reduce congestion at peak times.
The challenge is to address the mobile users’ experience, now people are viewing videos, listening to audio, and playing games on mobile devices. One issue is that network congestion causes blocks and wait times for the media if you are accessing the content at the same time as everyone else. The bandwidth is the constraint as data volumes easily exceed a PB per month.
This content is from social media, with repeated views of the same content–like YouTube–on-demand streaming for audio and video files, and people logging into sporting events and news feeds to update themselves on the situations. The spectrum available for all the users is limited.
The limited spectrum causes an imbalance in network loading per time period. Periodic congestion equates to poor user experiences, low quality, and line dropouts. In addition, the streaming media cannot be viewed off line. To solve these issues, a number of vendors and carriers have developed a new standard to cache content and move downloads off of peak times. The user can choose to optimize download speeds with high quality scheduled multicasting at off peak times or get lower quality and slower download speeds on demand.
The networks will need to get more intelligence to handle the metadata to schedule optimal timeslots for downloads. They will need to handle the information on user validation and permissions. For subjects like sports, the network could preload sidecar data prior tot eh event and release it to the user when the broadcaster asks.
The new standard will require a full ecosystem with participation from al participants. The ecosystem will process download delays based on content and network policies. The cached data will be available to the user in a manner that is fairly transparent to the user. The standard is based on existing standards and features modularity to eliminate server-side changes. The DRM policies and protections are still under consideration as is identifying the content and hardware compatibility. The user will have control of the functional operations as well as the use and access policies.
