FLAT RATE BILLING OF CONTENT DISTRIBUTION

摘要

The invention relates to flat rate billing schemes and ways of improving the cost-efficiency in the broadcasting of e.g. streaming media.

主权项

1. A method of providing a network content distribution service for delivering content from a content broadcaster to a service provider network to facilitate the service provider network to further distribute the content to content recipients; the method comprising
establishing a network content distribution service comprising
delivering said content to the service provider network by multicast distribution, andproviding a reserve distribution system to handle delivery errors of content occurring on the way to the content recipients; billing the content broadcaster for using the network content distribution service according to a flat rate plan, the flat rate plan at least covering the distribution made by multicast distribution.