Network coding to make Social TV possible

BANGALORE, INDIA: Seamless video consumption is happening at a pace never intended before thanks to proliferation of smart devices, such as smartphones, and tablet computers. These devices have enabled users to access content from anywhere, on any network and 'screen' and have in turn taken content beyond living space in to cyberspace.

On one hand, where people are increasingly streaming television programmes over the Internet, on the other, the ones who are watching conventional TV in different places are instant-messaging each other on events on-screen. This in turn is giving rise to a new phenomena called Social Television, which refers to the ways people are using social media in conjunction with their TV viewing. And the traditional network fall short of sustaining such data streaming. 

"A mesh of access networks and end devices has replaced the linear delivery-chain of the recent past. The content is not of the traditional type either; it is geo localized, time and place shifted and combines with social media. Moreover, the growth of predictions in order of magnitude for mobile and wireless video traffic necessities bold new approach to network architectures as the flow of models of the past have been replaced by dissemination in an interconnected mesh," noted Marie-Jose Montpetit, research scientist, MIT, while addressing the gathering at the EmTech India 2012 event today.

Moreover, Social TV also poses a number of technical challenges, such as allocation of bandwidth in order to address network choke., synchronization of video streaming to different devices and content and privacy security and calls for a technology that addresses these and simultaneously makes unrestrained video streaming, possible and that is network coding.

Speaking on the topic, 'Behind the screens: Network Design strategies in a Converged and Social World', during her keynote, Marie noted that with network coding, unlike in traditional network, contents of different packets are mixed together. And, if given enough information about how the mixing was done, a computer at the receiving end can separate the data back out again. Moreover, because each hybrid packet in some sense represents the contents of more than one regular packet, the method can end up saving bandwidth and consistently increase the data capacity of a wireless network to about three times what it was initially.

"By judiciously architecting and placing network coding elements in the network, it is possible to consistently increase data capacity of a wireless network to about three times what it was initially. Not just that, operators should also look into the possibilities of borrowing network packets to address bandwidth issues. By borrowing a few packets, of about three-five per cent, it is possible to offer the same performance on any network as that of a 3G or 4G network, thus making the future TV both mobile and social," she concluded.