I agree, EDGE sucks! A special mobile CDN is not going to fix the data rate problems that EDGE has… also EDGE is a TCP/IP based function, so any CDN (mobile or not) can feed data to an EDGE device.

The same applies to EVDO, which has a lot of bandwidth… so to me it’s not the CDN, it’s the data layer. If the data layer is slow, then a CDN no matter how special saucy it is…. will still be slow.

-Barrett

Wow, this is really political huh? Couple of things to get out of the way. First, while the iPhone is an amazing device, Edge is terrible. There is no way to overcome poor bandwidth. I challenge any CDN to be able to overcome problems faced by a poorly constructed physical delivery system like Edge. That said, it is all TCP/IP, so I get what Mr. Lyon is saying. I think that the larger CDN’s can rename the technology all they want, the issue is cost, and who can deliver the goods at the best cost. Re-naming a product riding on the same expensive network, then seeding a comment thread with negative posts about the only person willing to call it like it is…well it is just hype hype hype…I would love to see a mobile device CDN bake off; comparing delivery, reliability, and price. I have a feeling it would prove Mr. Lyuon correct.

The special stuff is in how the bits delivered to the devices are encoded, it’s all about the content, types of content, and means at which the content is packaged… not about the delivery technology itself.

It’s pretty clear that marketing for these companies are posting here, which was my point… I could create a “mobile CDN” by just calling myself that, it’s marketing fluff.

Just think about it for a while.. What is iTunes? It’s a HTTP enabled market place for music. Why would it need to be on a special CDN? Why not just have content which is light that the mobile devices can ingest better than the full blown thing?

What is T-Zones? It’s a web page… why would it need a special CDN?

At the end of the day, these are all IP devices that ride on the General Internet. So the same CDNs that deliver to the home desktop can deliver to a phone.

One may try to argue that the data layer is the special sauce for a mobile CDN, but the data layer is nothing a CDN needs to worry about, if the throughput is there, then IP networks can reach these devices, and it’s all an abstraction.

-Barrett

Just because he is an expert in his field does not mean he has any knowledge about mobile content delivery.

Mobile service providers mainly enable mobile networks to deliver better experiences at very high costs that are actully much cheaper than deploying additional cell sites to accommodate new data/ video services.

If Limelight and Dillithium have the foresight to combine these services at a time when the operators, who control the market, are beginning to open their networks then they have my vote.

Why does the CTO of Bitgravity have such a problem with this? Does he wish he had read what Dillithium and Limelight had to say before sticking his head into a market he obviously does not understand. Pitty he describes some vision the mobile content industry really needs as ‘marketing fluff’.

I would reiterate one of the main issues with mobile. That is people who say they understand and make comment about mobile when they have no real knowledge or expertise.

Great post by the author as it certainly showed the difference between ignorance and insight.

Note to self, a CTO, think before scoffing on a subject where I need a deeper understanding.

First, the list provided of Mobile CDN solution providers has one common weakness and is the main problem. None of them actually have a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and hence are more like Mobile Solution providers rather than Mobile CDN providers.

Most of these mobile solutions are sold to Mobile Network Operators directly. In comparison to CDN pricing, they are all very expensive and built to solve some major experience issues relating specifically to mobile network issues. Lots of value to a mobile network operator in using solution X with the existing infrastructure, as opposed to building out more capacity for the heavy consumption which comes with mobile media.

Next, all the main CDN providers have different flavors of services but none really have any mobile specific solutions as far as I am aware. Limelight say soon and kudos to them for moving in the right direction. However, to the other CDN:

‘Yes Forrest’.
CDNs do deliver packets, be those streaming packets or http download packets, but I am afraid it is not as simple as ‘Packets is but Packets does’.

Mobile is ‘like a box of chocolates’.
Lots of varieties, lots of flavors and lots of stuff that some just don’t like. So when you look at it as just delivering a packet over Ip with no intelligent mobile solution then, ‘ Like a box of chocolates you never know what you gonna get’.

Now your CDN has delivered a packet to another network that is useless. Some data which your content provider had to pay to deliver and the mobile customer had to pay to receive. Forget the poor experience - people have to pay. Maybe, the network rejects it, often the mobile device cannot support it or the conditions are not suitable and the packet is a wasted resource. Why care if you you get paid anyways.

I do not mean to criticize but you need to ‘Run forrest..Run’ because mobile is coming at the CDN market and there is a need for mobile specific services on a CDN.

The long list of vendors trying to sell to CDNs proves this point. It simply annoys me when people think they know mobile. They think it is simple and the same as the standardized desktop platform.

There are many people who say they can deliver to mobile but do not understand the technicalities and complexities of this platform. This is the main barrier to mobile service adoption and the reason why mobile data services have been a disappointment. It simply does not work on my network, my device or at my particular location at this particular point in time even though it worked here yesterday. Mobile specific solutions solve this issues.

We therefore need a CDN with mobile solutions. A combination of CDN performance and scale with mobile specific services. Most importantly we need services priced at CDN rates and not mobile solution rates.

In the current environment with the opening up of mobile networks expect to see more ‘Off deck’ content. Adoption of these open services can be accelerated by a Mobile CDN solving these two main issues:

i. Experience issue - device support issues, network blocking issues, connectivity and bandwidth issues.

2. Price issue - adoption is heavily influenced by pricing.

A Mobile CDN can bring around some serious benefits to mobile services adoption. Removing many barriers that exist today in a similar way to what happened with delivering video to the desktop environment with lower pricing, huge scale and improvements in performance.

Finally, experience matters on mobile the same way as it matters on the PC. If a Mobile CDN can bring about consumer focused solutions with a better richer experience then all of us will enjoy the benefits. Even Forrest.

*I* criticize Ms. Higgenbotham’s doubts of the viability of this market. There may be 5,000 different mobile platforms out there today. But you can guarantee that not one of those devices will be in production 3 years or even 18 months from now. The driver for change will be video of course. One commenter correctly points out the huge success of the iPhone.

In this case the capability to stream video cost efficiently to mobile devices will drive the development of those devices. No need for technology vendors to figure out configurations on 5,000 platforms. The platforms will conform to what the market demands.

-Stiennon

This is the case already with a lot of these devices, thus a “mobile CDN” really becomes custom content for a mobile device. It becomes special encoded versions of a video, audio file, ring tone, etc.

The only major custom design work a CDN should be working on for a “mobile CDN” would be designing security interfaces to content so ring-tone purchases can be secured. But guess what… That also already exists in the general Internet CDN world.

So, with some background I stand by saying a “mobile CDN” is nothing more than marketing fluff if a CDN such as LimeLight networks and not a phone company is building it.

I’ll just speak on behalf of Volantis at this point, since I’m a Volantis employee. Volantis’ software is currently used by all four of the major US telcos and is used extensively in live production by three of them. I believe the AT&T and Sprint logos are on our website.

Note that like several of the other vendors you mention we also sell to non-carrier customers, and we have a number of those in the US.

“Some have made limited progress with carries [sic] in Europe”

I’m not sure what limited means, but more than 35 carriers, worldwide (in Asia, Africa and Australasia as well as Europe and America), are using Volantis for either their rendering platform or their entire mobile portal, and in multiple territories where those carriers have international presence.

For the rest of the list, I admit there are several I’ve never heard of, and several I’ve heard of but never encounter, but I think that Mobixell (a partner of ours), Vantrix, Ortiva (with whom we’ve also worked) and Vidiator have numerous customers worldwide.

Happy to discuss this directly, should you so wish. I’m assuming from your blog and from the list that you’re most familiar with the streaming technology/rich media transcoding side, to which we’re adjacent rather than central (hence the partnerships mentioned above).

- Ortiva Wireless
- Vantrix
- ByteMobile
- Volantis
- Vidiator
- Uvumobile
- Transpera
- ROK Mobile
- Thin Multimedia
- RubberDuck Media Lab
- Mobixell

@henricks and johng, Barrett Lyon at BitGravity is no technical slouch. I submit his personal web site for your consideration: (link)

Doh!

The rub is - everyone is correct - transcoding - the ’secret sauce’ of CDN is in fact rescource hungry for the uninitiated - manpower, software, hardware, servers etc.

However there is medication available to ease the pain - one of which is a web based video transcoding service - soon to come out of the closet at Streaming Media East this month - VIXOLA - a fast and inexpensive service for transcoding from and to any format including H.264, Flash and 3GP.

In their alpha testing the service has proven to be extremely easy and efficient with scaleable resources for any medium to large CDN player.

Mohsen Nasiri COO is culled out of the fiber optic industry and presents an extremely attractive alterative to heavy internal investment for current or future CDN’s and Social networks - mohsen@voxola.com