Eugen Mikoczy

IPTV Systems, Standards and Architectures: Part II - IPTV Services over IMS: Architecture and Standardization

This article presents an architecture to support IPTV services in an IMS-based NGN. The architecture extends the current IMS specification with the required functionality to meet additional requirements of IPTV services. The proposed architecture can be deployed by an IPTV provider over heterogeneous access networks (mobile, wireless, and fixed) as a part of standardized NGN solutions. After presenting an overview of the IPTV standardization activities in DVB, ITU-T, ETSI, ATIS, 3GPP, and OMA, this article focuses on the ETSI TISPAN IPTV standardization. IMS-based IPTV architectural functions and possible IPTV evolutionary steps are discussed, and then the article presents an implementation example.

IMS based IPTV services: architecture and implementation

This paper presents a novel architecture for providing converged IP-based TV (IPTV) services specified by ETSI TISPAN standardisation for IPTV in ongoing NGN release 2 specifications. The described IPTV architecture is based on utilisation of the IP Multimedia Subsystem concept used by NGN architectural framework and its adaptation to provide the IPTV specific functionalities and services. Using the foundation provided by the IMS based architecture, we propose a new functional architecture to enhance the functionalities and features needed for scalable converged networks, flexible media delivery and advanced IPTV service scenarios. The proposed architecture, leveraging on the FMC architecture that operators may deploy to provide IPTV service across different access networks in future deployments (mobile, wireless, fixed) has prototypically been implemented in the ScaleNet* demonstrator testbed. This paper analyses in detail the main principles for such a converged reference architecture. The paper also presents the IPTV service scenario prototype called Click-to-Multimedia which shows some basic features and advantages implemented on top of the presented architecture by prototyping demo applications as proof of concept reference.

Next generation of multimedia services - NGN based IPTV architecture

The telecommunication community, industry and also standardization bodies like ETSI TISPAN or ITU-T are actually working on the evolution of next generation network (NGN) architecture to enable providing of IPTV services over same NGN infrastructure. We will briefly present the current standardization efforts in ETSI TISPAN to standardize IPTV platforms and summary of relevant specification. We provide outlook about possible migration path from current IPTV solutions which are not based on NGN towards NGN based IPTV platforms. There exist at least tree main steps in evolution concept which may be taken in to account and compared: NGN non-IMS solution, IMS based IPTV and the converged NGN IPTV architecture.

NGN platform architecture and its adaptation to the evolution trends

-The evolution strategy of NGN laboratory towards the converged networks based on IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) as trends and aims for implementation of converged NGN network is presented in the article. This article describes actual implementation of NGN laboratory and future planned extensions and integration work for incorporating IMS core elements to our laboratory as unified service control subsystem. Existing NGN solution includes applications and our experiences with integrations of applications and their usability.

Combinational services of NGN based IPTV

This paper describes the general concept of combinational/blended services for IP-based Television IPTV) services in next generation networks towards its service oriented architecture concept (SOA). Besides introducing general approaches of service reusability (SOA concepts), the service enables (e.g. presence, notification, messaging) as application service function in next generation networks will be outlined by standardization work in ETSI TISPANn and also explicit examples of prototypes are given. The extensibility will be elaborated within the IPTV subsystem and also as the possible interconnection with web services. Selected cases have been successfully prototyped and deployed exemplary in the laboratory testbed.

Evolution of IPTV Architecture and Services towards NGN

New technologies and advances enable the evolution of digital television and IPTV. Next step in IPTV evolution, which is actually quite frequently being discussed in the telecommunication community, industry and also standardization bodies like ETSI TISPAN or ITU-T, is the evolution of the Next Generation Network (NGN) architecture in order to provide the IPTV services over same NGN infrastructure. This chapter will explain main trends driving the IPTV evolution and highlight the most relevant standardization efforts in this area. Several concepts of IPTV architecture are presented as well as main differences and possible migration scenarios amongst various alternative solutions like non-NGN IPTV, NGN non-IMS, IMS based IPTV and the converged NGN IPTV architecture.

Hybrid IPTV Services with IMS: Integration of IMS Based IPTV with Broadcast and Unicast Mobile TV Services Using DVB-H

This paper presents a novel concept and prototype implementation of hybrid IPTV service based on IMS and DVB-H technologies. In the hybrid service, both traditional broadcast and unicast transmission technologies are used to deliver IPTV content. It is argued how such service scenario is effective and beneficial for hybrid use cases. The original technical contributions to ETSI technical report TR 182 030 about IMS-IPTV interconnection with DVB-H technology are presented in paper as well as description of our prototype implementation done within Celtic Netlab project.

An Identity Management Infrastructure for Secure Personalized IPTV Services

This article focus on IPTV security and IPTV service personalization by the introduction of an Identity Provider as new participant in IPTV service provision that deals with authentication, user profile and device profile management. The Identity Provider, integrated as part of the Telco operator, would provider user profiles with a wider scope than application specific profiles, enabling high personalization of services and improvement of user experience. Paper gives overview about existing IPTV security technologies but also describe novel architecture for secure personalized NGN based IPTV services.

Personalization of internet protocol television (IPTV) services in next-generation networks (NGN) architectures

This paper evaluates the existing NGN based IPTV architecture and services in the context of IPTV service personalization within multi-user environment at home network and user equipment. Advanced scenarios of IPTV for providing fully personalized and interactive IPTV services using existing and new mechanisms in Converged NGN based IPTV architectures are proposed within this paper. The services can improve the quality of experience (QoE) and user expectation via new personalized IPTV service behavior.

Presence Management and Merging Presence Information for NGN Services

This paper describes an approach for interworking scenarios between Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based and non SIP based frameworks (e.g. web services) in case of the presence management service. The characteristics of the concept of a centralized presence management will be introduced.