Anyone know of an IPTV provider/wholesaler who I could meet in Indianapolis (Henry St/Lifeline) or Chicago (Cermak/Equinix)?
Direct solicitations are OK out-of-band.
I have these guys as contacts for that sort of service. It was reasonably priced. They even had a "when you approach 1k customers, you can move to this other system" option. Someone that has small guys in mind is rare.
"Emily" < emily.call@mwt.net >
Emily Call
Midwest Video Solutions
608-634-7411
"Tom Barry" < barry@wins.net >, "Bob Hurtgen" < hurtgen@wins.net >
http://www.midwestvideosolutions.com/
Let them know I sent you. Maybe I'll get some cookies for it at some point.
Brandon Martin <lists.nanog@monmotha.net> writes:
Anyone know of an IPTV provider/wholesaler who I could meet in
Indianapolis (Henry St/Lifeline) or Chicago (Cermak/Equinix)?
"IPTV" implies, or used to imply, multicast (or unicast, whichever,
swap them with a few DCMs) MPEG2-TS feeds. If that's what you want,
fine, but if it's not you might want to be a bit more specific.
-r
Yes, I should perhaps clarify.
I'm ideally looking for a provider targeting smaller providers/startups that has some means at their disposal to deliver conventional cable-like TV services over my IP-speaking network (could be a separately routed network or "in-band") to my customers either on a re-branded or co-billed type basis using IP-speaking, Ethernet-connected (or 802.11) STBs either supplied by me to provider specifications or by the aforementioned provider. The network in question is IPv4 multicast capable and could somewhat trivially (I think) be IPv6 multicast capable (it is definitely IPv6 unicast capable).
I am not looking for bulk feeds of content for me to redistribute using conventional infrastructure as I don't have any at this point. As the network this would be going into is greenfield, I have little desire to run a conventional RF network overlay, though it isn't completely out of the question.
I believe Vubiquity (http://www.vubiquity.com/product-portfolio/livevu/) does, as well as Comcast HITS (http://www.comcastwholesale.com/products-services/mpeg-2-content-delivery/mpeg-2-delivery-content-providers).
Frank
Certainly, if you've got a Multicast-capable greenfield IP network, I'd
suggest focusing energies on that.
In case you have not yet settled on a technology, I'd suggest going for
NG-MVPN. You should be able to get decent IPv6 Multicast support for it
as well.
Mark.
Brandon Martin <lists.nanog@monmotha.net> writes:
The network in
question is IPv4 multicast capable and could somewhat trivially (I
think) be IPv6 multicast capable (it is definitely IPv6 unicast
capable).
You'd be surprised how many edge devices (unfortunately) support IPv6
multicast only to the degree necessary to implement neighbor
discovery. Lean on your vendor.
And for the love of God, do SSM not ASM (requires igmpv3 or mld2). I
can expound on the problem space off-list if you like.
-r
Agree that SSM will scale better in the long run. RP's are a thing of
the past.
In case your STB's don't support IGMPv3 (which is very possible), ensure
your router supports SSM Mapping (any decent vendor has this) and run
IGMPv3 on the port facing the STB.
If your STB's support IGMPv3, then you're in SSM heaven, and ASM can go
where RIP now lives.
Mark.
I'm not sure why or that Comcast would enable competition. Maybe I'm wrong. Then again, maybe Brandon isn't in a Comcast served area.
I suspect it's more of a choice of what's available than what he wants. If you're building from the ground-up, you can be picky, but if you're going light-weight (as little head-end as possible), you're stuck with whatever (good or bad) your wholesale partner uses.
You'd be surprised how many edge devices (unfortunately) support IPv6
multicast only to the degree necessary to implement neighbor
discovery. Lean on your vendor.
Yep, I know routers will do it in the latest software, which I cannot quite run (needs a modest hardware upgrade), but I'm still playing around with the edge devices which is why I say "I think".
And for the love of God, do SSM not ASM (requires igmpv3 or mld2). I
can expound on the problem space off-list if you like.
My routers will do SSM on IPv4 and IPv6, and they will also do SSM mapping, but I do need to check on the access pieces which prefer to be the customer's L3 termination (they CAN hand off L2 to another router, but my preferred routers are not designed for bulk BRAS use). The access gear is somewhat in the "price point" realm and, while surprisingly capable, is not particularly well documented. This was definitely on my checklist before committing to any multicast solution, especially IPv6-based, but I would like to hear your thoughts if you don't mind (via unicast or multicast as you deem appropriate). I've not done a ton of IPv4 multicast and basically no IPv6 multicast in the past. Many vendors are unfortunately just starting to catch up with mainstream IPv6 support in many cases...only took a decade (a frequent lament on here, I know), and multicast is still lagging in that department in many cases.
You can have multiple BRAS topologies running at the same time.
You can terminate Internet access on one BRAS and IPTv on another.
This lends itself well to centralized BRAS topologies, although it can
also work in distributed models too.
Depends on how much hardware you have.
Mark.
Different division within Comcast. =)
Frank
That is true. They'll sell ISPs transport.
Because selling transport is really good revenue for facilities based carriers everywhere and the revenue per deal is higher than selling the same amount of Internet access (even if the bits are going to the other side of the planet).
Consider that 1 Gbps metro ethernet layer 2 transport circuit might be between $1500 and $3500 per month (wild guess) and the commodity residential gige Internet access is is starting look like it's going to be between $70 and $350 per month.
A transport sale is good money they can pick up off the ground just by saying yes. I'm sure if you were a sales rep you'd like selling metro ethernet loops for the larger commissions and the larger customers that it got you involved with. If you were a regional sales director for a carrier you'd especially like how these help your sales group more quickly make your numbers. These deals are priced to pay for extending the physical plant as well.
Any carrier that doesn't help a customer with a transport request ends up effectively sending that customer to a competitor, with the result the customer then pays the competitor to extend their physical plant to the customer's location in the original carriers territory.
Mike.