In order for CDN interconnection to become a reality, business use cases have to be elaborated between operators to replace the existing inequitable business models imposed by CDN providers. Those business models use Operators' infrastructure as simple pipes limiting the revenue share to peering agreements. Alternative use cases would consider a content delivery aware model where monetization would be based on the act of delivery instead of packet transport.

Once business cases are established, a set of technical requirements can be derived to create a set of interfaces between different Operators' CDN networks. Those interfaces need to address content ingestion, delivery, accounting, protection rights extension. The design objective would be to have an easy to implement and monetize interaction model comparable to voice interconnection architectures. A more technical approach could then be applied so as to define architectural proposals to address those requirements.

What are the main objectives of this Project?

The objectives of this study are to:

• Elaborating business cases related to CDN interconnection
• Providing a set of technical requirements to help building appropriate CDN interfaces between operators. Those requirements need to address (at least) content ingestion, delivery, accounting and protection rights extension
• Providing an architectural design addressing those requirements and specifying technically the required interfaces. The design objective would be to have an easy to implement and monetize interaction model comparable to voice interconnection architectures
• Disseminating the results to appropriate SDO's by providing common contributions and pressure to get them accepted by the industry
• Preparing a larger initiative with the aim of building technical implementations and conduct field trials between operators

Project participants:

• France Télécom
• Portugal Telecom
• Telekom Austria
• Slovak Telecom