Secure Mediation Controller – 99%+ ‘guaranteed’ bandwidth

Working in synchrony with deployed Media Grid Engines, nuMetra’s Secure Mediation Controllers (SMC) will finely segment capacity at last-mile bottlenecks according to traffic policies set by ISPs via their participation in the InterStream Association.  Commercially available during Phase II of the InterStream Pilot, the deployment of SMCs will result in the levels of broadband service delivered to consumers being tightly correlated with their expectations of quality as per the application being used—including the ability to guarantee designated traffic flows at 99.99%+ of levels promised to and paid for by content distributors during times of peak Internet usage.

This level of granularity in measuring, securing and exchanging bandwidth will lead to the expectations of all parties of the broadband ecosystem—ISPs, media companies and consumers alike—being met and likely surpassed relative to current “best-effort” offerings. A Secure Mediation Controller segments traffic according to: (1) Whether flows are tagged by a Media Grid Engine as needing a service level appropriate for time-sensitive traffic (such as streaming video) and; (2) The aggregate traffic characteristics of TCP flows.  The SMC mediates web traffic and sustained traffic flows such as FTP and peer-to-peer by identifying their unique traffic characteristics so that these flows may receive appropriate levels of service.

nuMetra will provide the Secure Mediation Controller technology to micro/advanced-TCA network equipment platforms and under license to proprietary network equipment platforms.  SMC functionality compliments existing network equipment solutions. It is designed to augment existing mediating technologies such as deep packet inspection. Contact us at bizdev@numetra.com for more information.

ISTP & S-ISTP: The Language Of ‘Premium’ Bandwidth

The InterStream Transit Protocol (ISTP) is enabled by a freely downloadable plug-in to the consumer’s browser that effectively serves as the end-point for a secure mediation system. ISTP provides multiple functions such as communicating feedback to the Media Grid Engines as to the degree of network congestion from a content distributor’s server through to the endpoint of a consumer’s “last-mile” connection.

Once installed, a consumer will see “istp://” instead of “http://” for any content that originates from InterStream’s secure mediation system. Alternatively, at the choosing of the media provider, ISTP-delivered content can be embedded into existing HTML website code.

Analogous to secure HTTP, or HTTPS, Secure-ISTP (S-ISTP) enables media including early window and premium value subscription-based content to be streamed and remain encrypted end-to-end until it reaches its destination. S-ISTP uses a public key infrastructure to authenticate each S-ISTP session, conceptually similar to arrangements used by the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols.

S-ISTP playback devices, embedded in televisions, set tops and other devices, will be made commercially available by consumer electronics vendors during Phase III of the InterStream Pilot.