Kontiki

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This article is about the digital media distribution technology. For other uses, see Kontiki (disambiguation).
 Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (August 2007)

Kontiki was a digital media distribution technology company, founded in 2000 and acquired by VeriSign in March 2006.

Kontiki's peer-to-peer software, the Kontiki Delivery Manager provides the basis of many of the UK's video on demand services, including Sky Anytime[1], 4od[2] and the BBC iPlayer[3].

A peer to peer network
A peer to peer network

Kontiki works using peer to peer technology. Rather than the user downloading the television program from a central server, the users download from each other. This may be why Kontiki reseller ioko claim that using Kontiki "reduces IT & network costs by 70%-90%" [4] The Kontiki client (KService.exe) continues to run when a user closes the provider's application and will continue to share the user's downloaded content with other users on the network, using up the user's bandwidth without notifying them (except for the iPlayer which provides an option to stop sharing when the client closes). This can be particularly troublesome for users with Broadband connections that include a capped monthly download limit.[5]

In addition, this software has several known issues, such as taking up 100% of processor time when running.[6]

This extra bandwidth used could make UK ISPs put up their prices or use technical measures such as blocking or traffic shaping to deal with iPlayer traffic. It is estimated that an hour of iPlayer downloads at peak time would cost them 67 pence at BT wholesale prices.[7]

Kontiki has four parts: Network Publisher, Network Protector, Network Manager and Analyser. [8]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sky chooses Kontiki's secure peer-to-peer delivery management system (2005-10-01). Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
  2. ^ VeriSign Provides Peer-to-Peer Delivery Infrastructure Enable Channel 4 On-Demand (2006-12-14). Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
  3. ^ BBC aims to become big in online television (2005-09-09). Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
  4. ^ Kontiki. Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
  5. ^ KService.exe, Channel 4 and the Stolen Bandwidth (2007-05-09). Retrieved on 2007-06-13.
  6. ^ Battle Encoder Shirase (2008-02-09). Retrieved on 2008-04-29.
  7. ^ iPlayer Politics: Behind the ISPs vs BBC row (2007-08-14). Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
  8. ^ Kontiki Delivery Management System. Retrieved on 2007-08-15.

[edit] External links