CDN federation allows participants to offer a global CDN service by pooling and sharing resources amongst major regional players and at the Content Delivery Summit, taking place Monday, May 14th in NYC, we have an entire sessions devoted to the topic of "The Business of CDN Federation". The session will examine the business prospects of CDN federations, considering the market opportunities, enablers, challenges and timing. Confirmed speakers include:

• Moderator: Barry Tishgart, VP, GM, Wholesale Services, Comcast
• Tony Lapolito, Director of Product Management, IP Video Solutions and CDN, Cisco
• Peter Papavasiliou, VP, Marketing, Concentric Cloud Solutions
• Ditlev Bredahl, CEO, OnApp
• Hui Zhang, Chief Scientist, Co-Founder, Conviva

Readers of my blog can take advantage of special pricing by registering using the promo code of DRF01 to attend the CDN Summit for only $295. Taking a look at the pre-register attendee list we have carriers, telcos, ISPs, MSOs, content owners and vendors coming from all over the world. This is the event to be at if you are in the content delivery business. Twitter hash tag #cdnsummit

[Updated 5/22: In a blog post, Comcast says they are not prioritizing traffic, but Level 3 says they are.]

Last year, when Comcast acquired NBC Universal they had to agree to terms as set forth by the Department Of Justice and the FCC regarding how they would treat competitive content delivered over their network. One of the points in that document says that, "Comcast shall not prioritize Defendants’ Video Programming or other content over other Persons’ Video Programming or other content." While Comcast agreed to these terms and said they would not prioritize their video traffic over someone like Netflix, that's exactly what they are doing.

Based on details I have gotten from those who have looked at how packets are marked on their home broadband connections provided by Comcast, packets are in fact being marked with Quality of Service tags. Services from MLB, Hulu and Netflix are marked with CS1 tags and Xfinity is marked as CS5. In tests, the Xfinity traffic originates from servers inside Comcast's network and the other traffic originates on Level 3 and Akamai servers outside Comcast's network. All of these QoS tags are put on by Comcast.

According to the IETF the QoS tags have the following definitions;

• CS1: This service is the low class of service and effectively gets any bandwidth left after every other service has transmitted over the link. "The fundamental service offered to the Low-Priority Data service class is best-effort service with zero bandwidth assurance". This class gets any of the scraps left over after all other classes have had their packets forwarded.

• CS5: This service is considered a high class of service that gets processed such that it is ensured to get forwarded: "The Signaling service class SHOULD use the Class Selector (CS) PHB, defined in [RFC2474]. This service class SHOULD be configured to provide a minimum bandwidth assurance for CS5 marked packets to ensure they get forwarded."

All Internet traffic from at least the cable modem termination system to the home cable modem shares exactly the same path. There is no "private IP network" between those points. While I don't know how the Comcast servers that deliver the Xfinity traffic connect to the cable modem termination system, and while that part could be part of a private network, I think that's unlikely.

The part of the network from the cable modem termination system to the homes is usually the most congested and that equipment in the cable modem termination system is capable of acting on those QoS tags and so could treat the traffic differently. What I don't know is if they are treating the two tags differently, but the tags are there. If they aren't making use of them why are they adding them?

And if they are using them I think you could then make a reasonable assertion that the spirit, if not the letter, of the DoJ statement is being broken by Comcast. I've put in a request to Comcast to see if they want to address this and will update the post once I hear back.

Updated: If you'd like to do this testing for yourself, here is a PDF that shows you how to do it.

There are a lot of new and exciting companies entering the CDN market and at the Content Delivery Summit, talking place Monday May 14th in NYC, attendees will have to the chance to see some of these companies in action, including presentations from Qwilt, Yottaa, Fastly and DeepField Networks.

• The New Evolution of Transparent Video Caching: The presentation will cover best practices for network insertion of transparent caching solutions in order to maximize return on investment and will go through pre-deployment analysis and sizing strategies, demonstrating Qwilt's platform video analytics capabilities. The session will also provide some guidelines in sizing and comparing TPC solutions and what are the gotchas operators should look for. Presenter: Alon Maor, CEO, Qwilt

• Using CDN and Front-End Optimization To Deliver a Good Mobile Experience: In this presentation, learn how Mocospace combined Front-End optimization with CDN to deliver a great user experience for mobile apps and HTML5 games. Hear about some of the unique challenges of the mobile web including the differences between the desktop and mobile web, how last-mile latency is the primary opportunity, and how and why front-end optimization is a key ingredient for innovation and continued growth on the mobile Web. Presenters: Jamie Hall, CTO, Mocospace and Bob Buffone, Co-Founder, CTO, Yottaa

• The Economics of Building an In-House CDN: This presentation will cover the technology and economic factors when it comes to building your own CDNs in a private/hybrid model, for long tail user generated content. Fastly is the result of a build your own CDN strategy at Wikia and was spun off to deliver a service and custom-made CDN installations. Learn how to deliver very large libraries of small objects, with very flexible configuration language and instant network wide purges, all delivered from well-balanced high performance commodity boxes. Presenter: Artur Bergman, CEO, Founder, Fastly

• CDN and Over-The-Top Traffic Data: In one of the largest studies of its kind, DeepField Networks will report on growth in CDN traffic, over-the-top services and other sources of consumer video across multiple providers. Data will be presented from a study of a hundred providers around the world as well as their recent work analyzing traffic patterns across several million subscribers in North America. This presentation explores seismic, ongoing shifts in Internet traffic demands and underlying network architecture as well as a discussion of evolving provider peering and CDN strategies. Presenter: Craig Labovitz, Co-Founder, DeepField Networks

It's not too late to get a pass for the event and you can use the special registration code of DRF01 and get access to the keynotes, all of the sessions, presentations and networking events for only $295. Register here and put the code DRF01 in the box at the bottom. Twitter hash tag #cdnsummit

On Tuesday May 15th, the Streaming Media East show kicks off in NYC with tons of speakers, how-to sessions, exhibitors and the broadband device pavilion. And thanks to Roku, we've also got some Roku LT and Roku 2 XD players to give away. Simply register online for a free exhibits pass and stop by the broadband device pavilion where we will be raffling off these and other devices during the two days of the show.

And if you want to attend all of the how-to sessions, it's not too late to get a pass for those and you can use the special registration code of DRF01 and get access to everything at the show for only $455. Register here and put the code DRF01 in the box at the bottom. Twitter hash tag #smeast

Many service providers are exploring the potential of CDN interconnection and CDN federations and at the Content Delivery Summit, taking place Monday, May 14th in NYC, Cisco will review the business rationale behind this trend and introduce the "CDN Federation Pilot" project.

A current program under which leading SPs worldwide have been implementing a long-term, large-scale, multi-phased initiative to plan, deploy, and test an open CDN federation pilot. While the first phase of the CDN Federation pilot proved the concept of a CDN Federation and its essential capabilities, the second phase investigated advanced capabilities across the federation. The lessons learnt from this second phase will also be presented at the Summit, followed by a Q&A session.

Readers of my blog can take advantage of special pricing by registering using the promo code of DRF01 to attend the CDN Summit for only $295. Taking a look at the pre-register attendee list we have carriers, telcos, ISPs, MSOs, content owners and vendors coming from all over the world. This is the event to be at if you are in the content delivery business. Twitter hash tag #cdnsummit

What is the easiest way to optimize an application, should I purchase an ADC, subscribe to a CDN, install a front-end optimization solution, deploy a WAN optimization controller or do I need all of these?

On Monday May 14th, at the Content Delivery Summit in NYC, attendees will learn about different application delivery optimization solutions on the market, how they differ and which ones incorporate all of these components to improve the end user experience for their web applications. Confirmed speakers include:

• Moderator: Steve Lerner, Media Practice Dir., RampRate Sourcing Advisors
• Dawn Parzych, Product Manager, F5
• Jerry Hall, VP, Marketing, FastSoft
• John McIlwain, Director of Products, CDNetworks

Readers of my blog can take advantage of special pricing by registering using the promo code of DRF01 to attend the CDN Summit for only $295. Taking a look at the pre-register attendee list we have carriers, telcos, ISPs, MSOs, content owners and vendors coming from all over the world. This is the event to be at if you are in the content delivery business. Twitter hash tag #cdnsummit

Carriers, OTT providers, network operators and even large enterprises are increasingly interested in offering their own CDN and other value-added services. On Monday May 14th, the Content Delivery Summit kicks off in NYC with discussions and presentations from telcos, MSOs, ISPs and content delivery networks and suppliers about the infrastructure of content acceleration.

Some of the sessions will feature executives from Akamai (AKAM), Limelight Networks (LLNW) and EdgeCast, as well as customers, presenting their latest managed and licensed CDN deployments.

• Why a Managed-CDN Offering was Compelling for Bell Canada: For many, the reduction of costs, expansion of service offerings, and generation of additional revenue streams are compelling value propositions to building your own CDN. Gain invaluable insight from Bell Canada on the challenges of entering the CDN market, best practices on doing so successfully, and why a Managed-CDN approach may be best for you. Presenters: (Robert Kevork, Associate Director, Marketing, Content Delivery Network, Bell Canada), (Simon Drinkwater, Director of Market Development, Limelight Deploy)

• How Pacnet Is Accelerating Content Delivery in Asia: Asia hosts one of the fastest growing Internet populations in the world, and one that is consuming and producing an increasing amount of digital content. This presentation will discuss the key trends in this market and share Pacnet's strategy to accelerate content delivery across this diverse region through deployment of CDN technology. They will also focus on the need for a true OpenCDN federation in which members operate in the geographies in which they are strong and can rely on partners with similar strengths in other regions to offer a powerful and consistent global service to customers. Presenter: (Jon Vestal, VP, CDN Products, Pacnet)

• Utilizing a Converged Operator CDN Platform for Next Generation Video-on-Demand: This presentation will look at how one cable company utilized a single operator CDN platform to deliver their VOD library to their own IP-enabled set top boxes, as well as extend that content to other IP devices including, PCs, game consoles, tablets, and smart phones, both on and off their network. The presentation will cover the way network operators and MSOs think about delivering video to their subscribers and how a managed CDN platform can also be utilized to better manage the experience for traditional over-the-top (OTT) video services. Presenter: (Frank Childs, Director of Product Marketing, Networks Division)

Attendees will have the chance to see a brief overview from each company as well get their questions answered during the Q&A portion of the event and afterwards, do one-on-one meetings.

It's not too late to get a pass for the event and you can use the special registration code of DRF01 and get access to the keynotes, all of the sessions, presentations and networking events for only $295. Register here and put the code DRF01 in the box at the bottom. Twitter hash tag #cdnsummit