Posted: 11th Sep, 2010 By: MarkJ

BT Wholesale has signed
Cisco's Content Delivery System (CDS) to operate its long awaited
BT Content Connect (BTCC) service and handle the growing demand for broadband internet video / TV services (e.g. Project Canvas UK). BTCC will be capable of caching popular video content, effectively on the ISP's own network, as opposed to dragging it over several Internet servers to reach the end-user; this lowers congestion, cuts costs and speeds up performance.
Many media groups already use
Content Delivery Networks (CDN), such as Akamai, but these services often only reach the edge of an ISPs network. Naturally BT's position in the market allows them to get much closer and avoid congested areas.
Simon Orme, BT Wholesale's Strategy Director of Content Services, said:
"Our industry is witnessing a significant growth in content delivery over broadband – driven by the consumption of video services at home, at work and on the move.
Working with Cisco enables us to offer an efficient, long-term solution and bringing the power of broadband and content together leads to exciting, innovative end user experiences. It will allow all players – including content service providers – to extract more value from content services in the future while pleasing end users."
BTCC will be deployed nationally and include
Quality of Service (QoS) assurance alongside detailed reporting and analytics on how the customers' content is being consumed. We've know about this service since last year and reported on it before, although interested ISPs will need to wait until early 2011 before it becomes available. That's just in time for the new BT-backed open broadband TV standard, Project Canvas.