Address translation problems in IMS based next generation networks

The development of packed based multimedia networks reached a turning point when the ITU-T and the ETSI have incorporated the IMS to the NGN. With the fast development of mobile communication more and more services and content are available. In contrast with fix network telephony both the services and the devices are personalized in the “mobile world”. Services, known from the Internet - like e-mail, chat, browsing, presence, etc. – are already available via mobile devices as well. The IMS originally wanted to exploit both the benefits of mobile networks and the fancy services of the Internet. But today it is already more than that. IMS is the core of the next generation telecommunication networks and a basis for fix-mobile convergent services. The fact however that IMS was originally a “mobile” standard, where IPv6 was not oddity generated some problems for the fix networks, where IPv4 is used. In this article I give an overview of these problems and mention some solutions as well

Parlay X Web Services for Policy and Charging Control in Multimedia Networks

The paper investigates the capabilities of Parlay X Web Services for Policy and Charging Control (PCC) in managing all Internet-protocol-based multimedia networks (IMSs). PCC is one of the core features of evolved packet networks. It comprises flow-based charging including charging control and online credit control, gating control, and Quality of Service (QoS) control. Based on the analysis of requirements for PCC, the functionality for open access to QoS management and advanced charging is identified. Parlay X Web Services are evaluated for the support of PCC, and some enhancements are suggested. Implementation aspects are discussed, and Parlay X interfaces are mapped onto IMS control protocols. Use cases of Parlay X Web Services for PCC are presented

Enhancing QoS and QoE in IMS Enabled Next Generation Networks

Managing network complexity, accommodating greater numbers of subscribers, improving coverage to support data services (e.g. email, video, and music downloads), keeping up to speed with fast-changing technology, and driving maximum value from existing networks - all while reducing CapEX and OpEX and ensuring Quality of Service (QoS) for the network and Quality of Experience (QoE) for the user. These are just some of the pressing business issues faced by mobileservice providers, summarized by the demand to "achieve more, for less." The ultimate goal of optimization techniques at the network and application layer is to ensure End-user perceived QoS. The next generation networks (NGN), a composite environment of proven telecommunications and Internet-oriented mechanisms have become generally recognized as the telecommunications environment of the future. However, the nature of the NGN environment presents several complex issues regarding quality assurance that have not existed in the legacy environments (e.g., multi-network, multi-vendor, and multi-operator IP-based telecommunications environment, distributed intelligence, third-party provisioning, fixed-wireless and mobile access, etc.). In this Research Paper, a service aware policy-based approach to NGN quality assurance is presented, taking into account both perceptual quality of experience and technologydependant quality of service issues. The respective procedures, entities, mechanisms, and profiles are discussed. The purpose of the presented approach is in research, development, and discussion of pursuing the end-to-end controllability of the quality of the multimedia NGN-based communications in an environment that is best effort in its nature and promotes end user's access agnosticism, service agility, and global mobility.Comment: 11 Page

An optimized QoS scheme for IMS-NEMO in heterogeneous networks

The network mobility (NEMO) is proposed to support the mobility management when users move as a whole. In IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), the individual Quality of Service (QoS) control for NEMO results in excessive signaling cost. On the other hand, current QoS schemes have two drawbacks: unawareness of the heterogeneous wireless environment and inefficient utilization of the reserved bandwidth. To solve these problems, we present a novel heterogeneous bandwidth sharing (HBS) scheme for QoS provision under IMS-based NEMO (IMS-NEMO). The HBS scheme selects the most suitable access network for each session and enables the new coming non-real-time sessions to share bandwidth with the Variable Bit Rate (VBR) coded media flows. The modeling and simulation results demonstrate that the HBS can satisfy users' QoS requirement and obtain a more efficient use of the scarce wireless bandwidth

A cooperative cellular and broadcast conditional access system for Pay-TV systems

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2009 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.The lack of interoperability between Pay-TV service providers and a horizontally integrated business transaction model have compromised the competition in the Pay-TV market. In addition, the lack of interactivity with customers has resulted in high churn rate and improper security measures have contributed into considerable business loss. These issues are the main cause of high operational costs and subscription fees in the Pay-TV systems. As a result, this paper presents the Mobile Conditional Access System (MICAS) as an end-to-end access control solution for Pay-TV systems. It incorporates the mobile and broadcasting systems and provides a platform whereby service providers can effectively interact with their customers, personalize their services and adopt appropriate security measurements. This would result in the decrease of operating expenses and increase of customers' satisfaction in the system. The paper provides an overview of state-of-the-art conditional access solutions followed by detailed description of design, reference model implementation and analysis of possible MICAS security architectures.Strategy & Technology (S&T) Lt

Serviços multimédia multicast de próxima geração

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrónica e TelecomunicaçõesUma das mais recentes conquistas na evolução móvel foi o 3G, permitindo o acesso a serviços multimédia com qualidade de serviço assegurada. No entanto, a tecnologia UMTS, tal como definida na sua Release ’99, é apenas capaz de transmitir em modo unicast, sendo manifestamente ineficiente para comunicações multimédia almejando grupos de utilizadores. A tecnologia IMS surge na Release 5 do 3GPP que começou a responder já a algumas necessidades, permitindo comunicações sobre IP oferecendo serviços Internet a qualquer momento e em qualquer lugar sobre tecnologias de comunicação móveis fornecendo pela primeira vez sessões multimédia satisfatórias. A Release 6 por sua vez trouxe a tecnologia MBMS que permite transmissões em broadcast e multicast para redes móveis. O MBMS fornece os serviços de aplicações multimédia que todos estavam à espera, tanto para os utilizadores como para os prestadores de serviços. O operador pode agora fazer uso da tecnologia existente aumentando todo o tipo de benefícios no serviço prestado ao cliente. Com a possível integração destas duas tecnologias passa a ser possível desenvolver serviços assentes em redes convergentes em que os conteúdos são entregues usando tecnologias unicast, multicast ou broadcast. Neste contexto, o principal motivo deste trabalho consiste essencialmente em fazer uso dos recursos da rede terminando com o desperdício dos mesmos e aumentando a eficiência dos serviços através da integração das tecnologias IMS e MBMS. O trabalho realizado começa com o estudo do estado da arte das telecomunicações móveis com referência às tecnologias referidas, seguindo-se a apresentação da possível integração IMS-MBMS e terminando com o projecto de uma plataforma de demonstração que no futuro possa ser uma implementação de serviço multimédia multicast. O objectivo principal é mostrar os benefícios de um serviço que era normalmente executado em unicast relativamente ao modo multicast, fazendo uso da nova convergência de tecnologias IMS e MBMS. Na conclusão do trabalho são referidas as vantagens do uso de portadoras multicast e broadcast, tendo como perspectiva de que este trabalho possa ser um ponto de partida para um novo conjunto de serviços poupando recursos de rede e permitindo uma eficiência considerável em serviços inovadores.3G is bang up to date in the mobile phone industry. It allows access to multimedia services and gives a guarantee of quality of service. The UMTS technology, defined in 3GPP Release ’99, provides an unicast transmission, but it is completely inefficient when it comes to multimedia group communications. The IMS technology first appeared in Release 5 that has already started to consider the interests of the clients. It provides communications over IP, offering Internet services anytime, anywhere on mobile communication technologies. Also, it offers for the first time satisfactory multimedia sessions. On the other hand, Release 6 gave rise to the MBMS technology that provides broadcast and multicast transmissions for mobile networks. The MBMS provides multimedia applications services that everyone was waiting, including users and service providers. Now the operator makes use of existing technology in order to provide better costumer services. The possible integration of these two technologies will contribute to develop services based on converged networks in which contents are delivered through the unicast, multicast or broadcast technologies. Therefore, the objective of this work is basically to make use of network resources avoiding wastes and improving customer services through the integration of the IMS and the MBMS technologies. The executed work starts with the mobile telecommunications state of the art with reference to the referred technologies, followed by the IMS-MBMS convergence presentation and finishing with the proposal for implementation of a service platform that can be used for a multimedia multicast service. The main point is to show the benefits of a service that has been normally executed in unicast mode over the multicast mode, making use of the new IMS and MBMS technologies integration. To closure the work it is referred the advantages to use multicast and broadcast bearers, with the perspective that this work could be a starting point to a new set of services, saving network resources and allowing for innovate services a considerable efficency

Softswitch Design and Performance Analysis

The increasing number of subscribers’ demands in telecommunication sector has motivated the operators to provide high quality of service in cost effective way. Moreover, operators need to have an open structure system so that they can move their systems to the next generation network architecture. For this purpose, Softswitch is an appropriate technology because it is a safe and cost efficient solution and though it can migrate from traditional circuit-switching based telephone system to internet protocol packet-switching based networking. Softswitch network divides the logical switch into several parts with different functions such as signaling gateway, media gateway, media server, etc. Standard communication protocols are implemented between those parts. Softswitch is software-based system to make connection between devices, and moreover to control voice calls, data and routes calls through different entities of the networks. Softswitch supports management functions such as provisioning, fault handling and reporting, billing, operational support, etc. Softswitch suitable for all types of traffic and services so it is very demanding in the competitive world of mobile operators. In this thesis, Softswitch has been studied and analyzed in details. Softswitch network consisted of different integrated modules such as transportation, calling and signaling, service application and management. Each module provides different services such as call control, routing, billing and network management. Each module is discussed from functional and service point of views. Softswitch based wireless network architecture as well as variety of service solutions is presented. Different protocol interfaces in softswitch network such as signaling system number 7 are explained. Moreover, bearer calls, independent call control protocol, gateway control protocol, IP bearer control protocol are explained as well. Variety of softswitch network architectures analysis has been done based on their performance and the applicability. Three Softswitch network architectures are proposed which are validated through simulations.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Linking session based services with transport plane resources in IP multimedia subsystems.

The massive success and proliferation of Internet technologies has forced network operators to recognise the benefits of an IP-based communications framework. The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) has been proposed as a candidate technology to provide a non-disruptive strategy in the move to all-IP and to facilitate the true convergence of data and real-time multimedia services. Despite the obvious advantages of creating a controlled environment for deploying IP services, and hence increasing the value of the telco bundle, there are several challenges that face IMS deployment. The most critical is that posed by the widespread proliferation ofWeb 2.0 services. This environment is not seen as robust enough to be used by network operators for revenue generating services. However IMS operators will need to justify charging for services that are typically available free of charge in the Internet space. Reliability and guaranteed transport of multimedia services by the efficient management of resources will be critical to differentiate IMS services. This thesis investigates resource management within the IMS framework. The standardisation of NGN/IMS resource management frameworks has been fragmented, resulting in weak functional and interface specifications. To facilitate more coherent, focused research and address interoperability concerns that could hamper deployment, a Common Policy and Charging Control (PCC) architecture is presented that defines a set of generic terms and functional elements. A review of related literature and standardisation reveals severe shortcomings regarding vertical and horizontal coordination of resources in the IMS framework. The deployment of new services should not require QoS standardisation or network upgrade, though in the current architecture advanced multimedia services are not catered for. It has been found that end-to-end QoS mechanisms in the Common PCC framework are elementary. To address these challenges and assist network operators when formulating their iii NGN strategies, this thesis proposes an application driven policy control architecture that incorporates end-user and service requirements into the QoS negotiation procedure. This architecture facilitates full interaction between service control and resource control planes, and between application developers and the policies that govern resource control. Furthermore, a novel, session based end-to-end policy control architecture is proposed to support inter-domain coordination across IMS domains. This architecture uses SIP inherent routing information to discover the routes traversed by the signalling and the associated routes traversed by the media. This mechanism effectively allows applications to issue resource requests from their home domain and enable end-to-end QoS connectivity across all traversed transport segments. Standard interfaces are used and transport plane overhaul is not necessary for this functionality. The Common PCC, application driven and session based end-to-end architectures are implemented in a standards compliant and entirely open source practical testbed. This demonstrates proof of concept and provides a platform for performance evaluations. It has been found that while there is a cost in delay and traffic overhead when implementing the complete architecture, this cost falls within established criteria and will have an acceptable effect on end-user experience. The open nature of the practical testbed ensures that all evaluations are fully reproducible and provides a convenient point of departure for future work. While it is important to leave room for flexibility and vendor innovation, it is critical that the harmonisation of NGN/IMS resource management frameworks takes place and that the architectures proposed in this thesis be further developed and integrated into the single set of specifications. The alternative is general interoperability issues that could render end-to-end QoS provisioning for advanced multimedia services almost impossible