Antonio Sanchez

Telco services for end customers: European Perspective

The provision of value added IT services are clearly a key element of the strategy of all telecommunications operators. Leading innovation in the service domain can become critical for the future success and growth of telecom operators. In this article we discuss a subset of European research projects and how they contribute to the innovation strategy of a large telecom operator.

User-oriented environment for management of convergent services

In the Internet of Services, users are surrounded by lots of connected devices and remote services with the potential for real-time interaction. While users could manually command their operation, it will be extremely convenient to have an environment where interaction workflows could easily be defined so that services could operate autonomously following those patterns. This article presents a system to allow individuals with no specific programming skills to define and execute those interaction workflows using graphical abstractions. The system has been validated inside a smart home scenario, as a good representative of the future Internet of Services environment due to the presence of multiple heterogeneous devices and services from different domains.

Scalable architecture and evaluation for multiparty conferencing over satellite links

This paper describes the architecture of a proposed multiparty conferencing system for satellites. Different conferencing models are discussed and compared. A session initiation protocol (SIP)-based conference signaling model and an extension to protocol-independent multicast sparse mode that supports quality-of-service (QoS) in DiffServ networks are proposed, as particularly suitable for multiparty conferencing applications over satellite links. The paper also presents key issues and potential solutions of scalable QoS multicast services for multiparty conferences over satellite. End-to-end QoS parameters for voice and video are measured and analyzed on a prototype.

Link-level effect of a noisy channel over data transmission on the return path of an HFC network

There are many problems regarding the performance of the return channel of a hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) network, as cable operators know well. These problems are mainly due to the branch-tree architecture of the coaxial part of the network, which causes all the noise from any point to add in the upstream direction, an effect called noise funneling. The present work has focused on the controlled insertion of selected types of noise into a part of a coaxial network, simultaneously with the data transmission of a cable modem towards the head end. As a result, the upstream (return) data transmission will be affected, depending on the various changing and controlled noise characteristics. Monitoring several parameters shows the effect on the transmitted signal, thus giving an idea of the quality of the transmission.

Digital services in the 21st century : a strategic and business perspective

Telecommunication Services provides a holistic approach to understand telecommunications systems by addressing the emergence and domination of new digital services, consumer and economic dynamics, and the creation of content by service providers. • Includes services, underlying technologies, and internal capabilities for social network advertising • Covers market dynamics that determine the successes and failures of service offerings • Discusses the impact of smartphones (iPhone launch) on the telecommunications and mobile device industry

Multimedia conference over satellite

Multimedia conference is one of the important applications in the Internet. To support such an application over satellite networks, one has to address quality of service (QoS) and performance of IP applications over satellite. Research has been carried to study how satellite networks can support efficiently the IP based multimedia applications including voice, video and data and impacts of satellite networks on these applications. This paper presents the results from the project IP Conferencing with Broadband multimedia over Geostationary Satellites (ICEBERGS), which is within the European 5th Framework IST programme. The networking architecture is based on Internet protocols, including IP, UDP, RTP and RTCP and the Internet signalling protocols such as SIP and SAP. A testbed has been developed to demonstrate the concept of multimedia conference over satellite and evaluate the performance of satellite networks and QoS of applications. The results from this project presented in the paper include IP based multimedia applications over satellite in terms of protocol architecture, satellite network configuration, and performance evaluation.

IP Based Multimedia Conference over Satellite

Significant research and development have been carried out recently in Voice over IP (VoIP) to integrate Internet data services and telephony services based on Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Satellites have been used for many years to provide long distance telephone services and have today an increasing portion of their capacities used to carry IP packets for Internet services. Therefore, convergence of voice and data is happening not only in terrestrial communication links, but also in satellite networks. With their global coverage and reach to remote areas, satellites are well positioned to enable growth of VoIP services. In addition to telephone and Internet services, satellite can also be used for multimedia conference services due to the broadcasting capability. This paper presents the studies of these topics as results of the VIP-TEN project on IP telephony and the ICEBERGS projects on multimedia conference over satellite.