Flat rate billing of content distribution

A method for improving cost-efficiency in delivering content from a content broadcaster to a service provider network, facilitating the service provider network to further distribute the content to content recipients;

• the method comprising
• enabling multicast distribution within the service provider network and delivering said content to the service provider network by multicast distribution, thereby reducing costs of data transport to the service provider network;
• and
• providing a reserve distribution system to handle delivery errors of content occurring on the way to the content recipients, thereby improving efficiency of the data transport to the service provider network.

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 a content cache connected to the service provider network, and
• providing 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 distribution of the content from the content cache.