Ad-Insertion is back - Spotted at Mediacom

    

Karl Bode reports to DSLReports.com that "Mediacom has started using Javascript to inject their own advertisements onto the top of websites -- including the normally stark Google main page".

See "Mediacom Injecting Their Ads Into Other Websites Among Other Annoying New DPI Ad Endeavors" - here.

Mediacom provides broadband service over cable in 22 states in the US and has 838,000 broadband subscribers (end of 2010).   
  

Source: DSLPorts.com

Carrier based behavioral advertizing, or ad-insertion, gained some popularity 3 years ago with startups such as Nebuad and Phorm. The way that some ISPs deployed it (without notifying customers) killed the business (and gave it - and the whole DPI industry a bad name) - although the main concern, privacy, could be solved by not saving the subscribers' behavior data and only use it, anonymously, during the process of matching the right ad. 

  

As the business model was based on advertising revenue sharing (between the carrier and the vendor), using an opt-in model would not justify the investment.

DPI was used with ad insertion for two reasons - one is technical - so only relevant flows will be re-directed for ad insertion processing. Then, DPI was used to analyze the subscriber's behavior - mainly by looking at his or hers HTTP traffic and inserting the most relevant ad into the web page (see screenshot above).

See also - "[WSJ] Carrier Ad-Insertion Returns!" - here and "Japan - ISPs May Use DPI for Behavioral Advertising" - here.

Cisco: "there is a way to monetize that demanding video traffic"

A recent post to Cisco's SP360 (Service Provider) blog by Scott Puopolo (picture), explains that "SPs know only too well that Internet video is costing them money because of the expense of maintaining an infrastructure capable of delivering high-quality online video. The good news is that there is a way to monetize that demanding video traffic".

See "Making Money in Internet Video" - here, and video below.
   

".. traditional CDN services allow content providers to bypass Internet congestion points, but do not allow them to bypass potential congestion points within the SP network that provides Internet access to consumers. CDN services delivered via the SP’s network are delivered by CDN caches placed much closer to the final viewer, reducing the probability of having congestion issues over the delivery path.. It goes without saying they [consumers] expect quality at least as good as they experience from TV viewing. By enabling quality of service (QoS), SPs can market their Internet video service as “TV-ready broadband,” guaranteeing predefined quality for content delivery among the CDN caches and customer viewing devices (TVs, set-top boxes, computers, game consoles, etc.)"

See also: 

• Allot - Openet: Monetizing and Controlling OTT Applications Use Cases - here
• Telefonica: "Pricing for Optimized Service should be based on QoS" - here
• Cisco: "New Capabilities, New Business Models, New Revenues" (for mobile internet) - here