Over The Top

A term you hear more, delivery of services via streaming over the internet rather than traditional broadcasting.

So BBC iPlayer for example, and other on demand services like Netflix. All effectively a download model for content.

All well and good, but hang on where is all that bandwidth going to come from? If these services have massive uptake then surely there will be a problem? Even a quick search now reveals North America at 20-30% Netflix traffic at peak times.

And this area is still in its infancy - I for one do not want to see the internet clogged up with people who do on-demand instead of being able to plan what they want to watch entertainment wise.

With planning you shift out all the peak time traffic to quieter times. All you have to do is choose the things you want to see, and have them downloaded and then available locally when you want to see them. At that point you are guaranteed the content, and don't have to rely on an flaky bufferring over the top service in "on demand" mode.

Still I think we'll have to see a bandwidth crunch before anything sensible like that happens.