Infrastructure For Video Via Internet – An ADSL Trial By The Dutch KPN
Presented by Jan Mendrik, manager ADSL devision Broadbandaccess and IP, KPN Telecoms at the congress ‘Integratie TV & Internet' in Amsterdam.
From January 1998 till March 2000 KPN Telecom conducted an ADSL trial with 1000 households in Amsterdam connected. The aim of the trial was to test and-to-end technological solutions for an IP based ADSL network. Several services were introduced and the reactions of the users were measured by questionnaires, statistical measurements of the user information streams (different kind of video programs and Internet streams).
Main categories of services were: plain fast Internet, interactive video, games and teleworking.
Among the interactive video programs were Music Video Clips, Delay-TV - the TV programs of the last 24 hours could be retrieved via a menu, movie trailers, educational programs, historical archive and special outside broadcasts for Snelnet. From video services, by far people liked Delay-TV and the Music Video Clips most.
The trial was a co-operation between KPN Telecom, NOB (Dutch Broadcasting Association) and Surfeit, the Internet company that serves Dutch universities. Surfeit provided the Internet services and was chosen because they are the fastest Internet organization in the Netherlands. NOB was chosen because they have strong relations with the broadcasting industry. The manufacturer of ADSL equipment was Orckitt, service and local support was delivered by Lucent Technologies.
The trial learned that the technology (IP transmission over ADSL) works alright, even for the video signals, although for large-scale networks scalability problems appear. It also became clear that normal Internet services can be really fast (1 to 2 Mbit/s) if the Internet provider has invested in fast connection to hot spots of Internet in the world or has invested in fast local storage for content.
From the user side people used Snelnet about 10,5 hours per week. They spent ¾ of that time to Internet and ¼ to video- and game related programs. The MPEG1 video quality, approximately equaling VCR quality pictures, was rated "good" (score 7 out of 10). Although users spent most time on Internet, the press did not stop giving attention to the interactive video. Apparently video is good to attract attention and Internet services are the bearer for the business case.
From March 2000 on, KPN is providing a commercial ADSL service: Mxstream. This service is open for all ISP's and other service providers. The bitrates are 0,5 and 1 Mbit/s downstream.