by Theresa Foley

If you’ve ever tried watching live video on your Internet terminal at home, chances are that unless you are one of the lucky two million U.S. broadband Internet access users today, the experience was less than thrilling. All of that is about to change. Streamed media experience is the future. It’s good news for the satellite industry, since streamed media is believed by many to be the killer app that will spur demand for broadband everywhere. A half dozen companies like Akamai, Intervu and Realnetworks are at the heart of the Internet media streaming revolution, and all of them are forming relationships with satellite companies.

Satellite usage by the new Internet content delivery sector is “white hot,” says Adam Selipsky, Realnetworks’ group product manager and a company spokesman for broadband. “By the end of this year, there will be two very robust business models which will have come into focus. Satellite-based hosting services go to the content provider and tend to be broadband focused. The second model is terrestrial networks that will partner with satellite delivery companies to deliver a portion of Internet broadcasting that is well-suited for satellites.”

Realnetworks is a world leader in providing software for listening to and watching audio and video content on the Internet. Realnetworks has partnerships with Panamsat, Cidera and Interpacket, where they have licensed Realnetworks’ technology around which to build their streaming networks. The company has agreements to conduct ongoing technical trials with Loral Cyberstar and Astra, to understand and optimize the technical aspects of delivering streaming media via satellite. In addition, IBeam has also licensed Realnetworks’ technology and built it into its streaming media network.

Delivery of streamed media content over the Internet has evolved to include a chain of companies that generate, package and help distribute the data packages from a point of origination through the Net to the end user. Realnetworks, based in Seattle, provides software to enable the streamed media to be distributed and received at several points along the way, and its platforms allow its partners to build their applications. Akamai, Intervu, Digital Island and others are in the content distribution services end, typically using their own specialized networks assembled with capacity from various other network owners. Their niche is the specialized, patented methods they’ve developed to find the fastest, most efficient routing to get the streamed media through the complex web of the network to a server at the “edge of the Net” very close to the end user. The satellites are just a link in the distribution chain.

Dan Rogers, vice president of marketing for Intervu, describes his network as the “plumbing” that moves streamed media around. “Satellite distribution of streaming is complicated and pretty new. A lot of it is in the midst of deployment but we absolutely have customers and partners stream rich media content over satellite today, ” Rogers said.

Keeping straight who does what in the evolving partnerships between the satellite companies and the Internet companies is not always easy. Some of the companies, like Akamai and Digital Island, have content providers as their clients, who pay to have their delivery of content accelerated. Other ventures, such as Edgix, serve the ISPs. While they too accelerate content delivery, the content is generally requested by the ISP customer, rather than pushed out by the content generator. As for the satellite operators, some are focused on “hosting,” in which they put satellite-connected servers and equipment into the premises of ISPs and other delivery companies, such as US West’s DSL network in the case of Panamsat’s new Net/36 venture. Other satellite firms have a simpler role of providing transport services.

One of the key indicators of who is ahead in the competition will be the number of “edge servers” each venture has at ISP locations and other places on the remote ends of the Internet. Exact numbers of installations are hard to come by today, especially since most installations are just starting, and the exact mix of terrestrial, satellite or hybrid connectivity in a network’s points of presence is still being determined.

But some of the potential big players can be flagged based on their plans. Panamsat’s new Net/36 initiative will have 3,500-5,000 servers, although few if any were in place when the initiative was announced. Interpacket has close to 500 ISPs in its network. Akamai currently has over 3,000 servers, but not all of them will be served by satellites.

Business models to earn money by streaming media are still taking shape. “Monetizing media streaming is a challenge,” Selipsky says, adding that Realnetworks has been successful in the past in finding revenue models that worked for other Internet services. Realnetworks will work hard to find feasible models for streamed media revenue generation for its partners. The key is to get the right bandwidth price combined with a creation of new value from the additional bits that are added to the content. Satellites appear to have a good role in this equation.

Theresa Foley is Via Satellite’s Senior Contributing Editor.