Quality of Service

Video is an engaging visual experience. Video subscribers expect high QoS: a
clear picture with good resolution, no downtime, and fast channel changing.

An anecdote from the early years of the NASA space program shows how
unconventional thinking can lead to radically different solutions. Soon after
NASA's early space flights, its engineers encountered a problem: In a time
before pocket digital diaries, the astronauts could not write properly during
their space flights because none of the existing pens functioned properly in
outer space. Under zero gravity and low-pressure conditions, ink flow in the
pens would be uneven, making smooth writing impossible.

Two years of research and several projects costing many million of dollars
later, NASA's engineers finally succeeded in making a pen that could write in
outer space. At this point, the American engineers wondered if the Russians had
yet solved the same problem. When contacted, the Russians replied simply that
they used a pencil.