Local Coordination for Interpersonal Communication Systems

The decomposition of complex applications into modular units is anacknowledged design principle for creating robust systems and forenabling the flexible re-use of modules in new applicationcontexts. Typically, component frameworks provide mechanisms and rulesfor developing software modules in the scope of a certain programmingparadigm or programming language and a certain computing platform. Forexample, the JavaBeans framework is a component framework for thedevelopment of component-based systems -- in the Java environment.In this thesis, we present a light-weight, platform-independentapproach that views a component-based application as a set of ratherloosely coupled parallel processes that can be distributed on multiplehosts and are coordinated through a protocol. The core of ourframework is the Message Bus (Mbus): an asynchronous, message-orientedcoordination protocol that is based on Internet technologies andprovides group communication between application components.Based on this framework, we have developed a local coordinationarchitecture for decomposed multimedia conferencing applications thatis designed for endpoint and gateway applications. One element of thisarchitecture is an Mbus-based protocol for the coordination of callcontrol components in conferencing applications

Improving the robustness of CELP-like speech decoders using late-arrival packets information : application to G.729 standard in VoIP

L'utilisation de la voix sur Internet est une nouvelle tendance dans Ie secteur des télécommunications et de la réseautique. La paquetisation des données et de la voix est réalisée en utilisant Ie protocole Internet (IP). Plusieurs codecs existent pour convertir la voix codée en paquets. La voix codée est paquetisée et transmise sur Internet. À la réception, certains paquets sont soit perdus, endommages ou arrivent en retard. Ceci est cause par des contraintes telles que Ie délai («jitter»), la congestion et les erreurs de réseau. Ces contraintes dégradent la qualité de la voix. Puisque la transmission de la voix est en temps réel, Ie récepteur ne peut pas demander la retransmission de paquets perdus ou endommages car ceci va causer plus de délai. Au lieu de cela, des méthodes de récupération des paquets perdus (« concealment ») s'appliquent soit à l'émetteur soit au récepteur pour remplacer les paquets perdus ou endommages. Ce projet vise à implémenter une méthode innovatrice pour améliorer Ie temps de convergence suite a la perte de paquets au récepteur d'une application de Voix sur IP. La méthode a déjà été intégrée dans un codeur large-bande (AMR-WB) et a significativement amélioré la qualité de la voix en présence de <<jitter » dans Ie temps d'arrivée des trames au décodeur. Dans ce projet, la même méthode sera intégrée dans un codeur a bande étroite (ITU-T G.729) qui est largement utilise dans les applications de voix sur IP. Le codeur ITU-T G.729 défini des standards pour coder et décoder la voix a 8 kb/s en utilisant 1'algorithme CS-CELP (Conjugate Stmcture Algebraic Code-Excited Linear Prediction).Abstract: Voice over Internet applications is the new trend in telecommunications and networking industry today. Packetizing data/voice is done using the Internet protocol (IP). Various codecs exist to convert the raw voice data into packets. The coded and packetized speech is transmitted over the Internet. At the receiving end some packets are either lost, damaged or arrive late. This is due to constraints such as network delay (fitter), network congestion and network errors. These constraints degrade the quality of speech. Since voice transmission is in real-time, the receiver can not request the retransmission of lost or damaged packets as this will cause more delay. Instead, concealment methods are applied either at the transmitter side (coder-based) or at the receiver side (decoder-based) to replace these lost or late-arrival packets. This work attempts to implement a novel method for improving the recovery time of concealed speech The method has already been integrated in a wideband speech coder (AMR-WB) and significantly improved the quality of speech in the presence of jitter in the arrival time of speech frames at the decoder. In this work, the same method will be integrated in a narrowband speech coder (ITU-T G.729) that is widely used in VoIP applications. The ITUT G.729 coder defines the standards for coding and decoding speech at 8 kb/s using Conjugate Structure Algebraic Code-Excited Linear Prediction (CS-CELP) Algorithm

MediaSync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization

This book provides an approachable overview of the most recent advances in the fascinating field of media synchronization (mediasync), gathering contributions from the most representative and influential experts. Understanding the challenges of this field in the current multi-sensory, multi-device, and multi-protocol world is not an easy task. The book revisits the foundations of mediasync, including theoretical frameworks and models, highlights ongoing research efforts, like hybrid broadband broadcast (HBB) delivery and users' perception modeling (i.e., Quality of Experience or QoE), and paves the way for the future (e.g., towards the deployment of multi-sensory and ultra-realistic experiences). Although many advances around mediasync have been devised and deployed, this area of research is getting renewed attention to overcome remaining challenges in the next-generation (heterogeneous and ubiquitous) media ecosystem. Given the significant advances in this research area, its current relevance and the multiple disciplines it involves, the availability of a reference book on mediasync becomes necessary. This book fills the gap in this context. In particular, it addresses key aspects and reviews the most relevant contributions within the mediasync research space, from different perspectives. Mediasync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization is the perfect companion for scholars and practitioners that want to acquire strong knowledge about this research area, and also approach the challenges behind ensuring the best mediated experiences, by providing the adequate synchronization between the media elements that constitute these experiences

Design and implementation aspects of open source next generation networks (NGN) test-bed software toolkits

Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien bilden seit langem das immer wichtiger werdende Rückgrat der weltweiten Wirtschaft und Telekommunikation, in der speziell Telekommunikationsnetze und -dienste einen elementaren Anteil tragen. Durch die Konvergenz von Telekommunikations- und Internettechnologien hat sich die Telekommunikationslandschaft in der letzten Dekade drastisch verändert. Bislang geschlossene Telekommunikationsumgebungen haben sich imWandel zum sogenannten Next Generation Network (NGN) hinsichtlich unterstützter Zugangsnetztechnologien und angebotener multimedialer Anwendungen sowie der eingesetzten Protokolle und Dienste zu komplexen, hochdynamischen, Multi-Service Infrastrukturen gewandelt. Die Kontrollschicht solcher NGNs ist dabei von übergeordneter Bedeutung, da diese zwischen den Zugangsnetzen und den Anwendungen sitzt. Der Einsatz und die Optimierung des IP-Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) wurde in diesem Kontext Jahrelang erforscht und diskutiert und es repräsentiert heute die weltweit anerkannte Kontrollplattform für feste und mobile Telekommunikationsnetze. Die Forschung an Protokollen und Diensten in diesen NGN Umgebungen ist aufgrund der Konvergenz von Technologien, Anwendungen und Business Modellen sowie der hohen Dynamik aber kurzen Innovationszyklen hochkomplex. Der frühzeitigen Zugang zu herstellerunabhängigen – aber dicht an der Produktwelt angelehnten - Validierungsinfrastrukturen, sogenannten offenen Technologietest-beds, kurz Test-beds, ist daher für Forschungs- und Entwicklungsabteilungen unerlässlich Die vorliegende Dissertation beschreibt die umfangreiche Forschungsarbeit des Autors auf dem Gebiet der offenen NGN Test-beds über die letzten neun Jahre und konzentriert sich dabei auf Entwurf, Entwicklung und Bereitstellung des Open Source IMS Core Projekt, das seit Jahren die Grundlage für eine Vielzahl von NGN Test-beds und zahllose NGN Forschungs- und Entwicklungsprojekte im akademischen als auch Industrienahen Umfeld rund um den Globus darstellt. Dabei wird ein großer Schwerpunkt auf die Anforderungen hinsichtlich Flexibilität, Leistung, Funktionalitätsumfang und Interoperabilität, sowie elementare Designprinzipien von Test-bedwerkzeugen gelegt. Die Arbeit beschreibt und bewertet darüberhinaus den Einsatz von Open Source Prinzipien und veranschaulicht die Vorteile dieses Ansatzes hinsichtlich Einfluss und Nachhaltigkeit der Forschung anhand des Aufbaus einer globalen Open Source IMS Core (OpenIMSCore) Forschungs-Community. Außerdem veranschaulicht die Arbeit zum Ende die Wiederverwendbarkeit der wesentlichen angewendeten Designprinzipien an anderen maßgeblich durch den Autor entwickelten Test-bed Werkzeugen, insbesondere dem Open Evolved Packet Core (OpenEPC) für die nahtlose Integration verschiedener Breitbandnetztechnologien.Information and Communication Technologies provide for a long time already the backbone of telecommunication networks, such that communication services represent an elementary foundation of today’s globally connected economy. The telecommunication landscape has experienced dramatic transformations through the convergence of the Telecom and the Internet worlds. The previously closed telecommunication domain is currently transforming itself through the so-called NGN evolution into a highly dynamic multiservice infrastructure, supporting rich multimedia applications, as well as providing comprehensive support for various access technologies. The control layer of such NGNs is then of paramount importance, as representing the convergent mediator between access and services. The use and the optimization of the IP-Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) was researched and considered in this domain for many years now, such that today it represents the world-wide recognized control platform for fixed and mobile NGNs. Research on protocols and services for such NGN architectures, due to the convergence of technologies, applications and business models, as well as for enabling highly dynamic and short innovation cycles, is highly complex and requires early access to vendor independent - yet close to real life systems - validation environments, the so-called open technology test-beds. The present thesis describes the extensive research of the author over the last nine years in the field of open NGN test-beds. It focuses on the design, development and deployment of the Open Source IMS Core project, which represents since years the foundation of numerous NGN test-beds and countless NGN Research & Development projects in the academia as well as the industry domain around the globe. A major emphasis is given for ensuring flexibility, performance, reference functionality and inter-operability, as well as satisfying elementary design principles of such test-bed toolkits. The study also describes and evaluates the use of Open Source principles, highlighting the advantages of using it in regard to the creation, impact and sustainability of a global OpenIMSCore research community. Moreover, the work documents that the essential design principles and methodology employed can be reused in a generic way to create test-bed toolkits in other technology domains. This is shown by introducing the OpenEPC project, which provides for seamless integration of different mobile broadband technologies

COIN : a customisable, incentive driven video on demand framework for low-cost IPTV services

There has been a significant rise in the provision of television and video services over IP (IPTV) in recent years. Increasing network capacity and falling bandwidth costs have made it both technically and economically feasible for service providers to deliver IPTV services. Several telecommunications (telco) operators worldwide are rolling out IPTV solutions and view IPTV as a major service differentiator and alternative revenue source. The main challenge that IPTV providers currently face, however, is the increasingly congested television service provider market, which also includes Internet Television. IPTV solutions therefore need strong service differentiators to succeed. IPTV solutions can doubtlessly sell much faster if they are more affordable or low-cost. Advertising has already been used in many service sectors to help lower service costs, including traditional broadcast television. This thesis therefore explores the role that advertising can play in helping to lower the cost of IPTV services and to incentivise IPTV billing. Another approach that IPTV providers can use to help sell their product is by addressing the growing need for control by today's multimedia users. This thesis will therefore explore the varied approaches that can be used to achieve viewer focused IPTV implementations. To further lower the cost of IPTV services, telcos can also turn to low-cost, open source platforms for service delivery. The adoption of low-cost infrastructure by telcos can lead to reduced Capital Expenditure (CAPEX), which in turn can lead to lower service fees, and ultimately to higher subscriptions and revenue. Therefore, in this thesis, the author proposes a CustOmisable, INcentive (COIN) driven Video on Demand (VoD) framework to be developed and deployed using the Mobicents Communication Platform, an open source service creation and execution platform. The COIN framework aims to provide a viewer focused, economically competitive service that combines the potential cost savings of using free and open source software (FOSS), with an innovative, incentive-driven billing approach. This project will also aim to evaluate whether the Mobicents Platform is a suitable service creation and execution platform for the proposed framework. Additionally, the proposed implementation aims to be interoperable with other IPTV implementations, hence shall follow current IPTV standardisation architectures and trends. The service testbed and its implementation are described in detail and only free and open source software is used; this is to enable its easy duplication and extension for future research.TeX output 2012.03.02:1241Adobe Acrobat 9.2 Paper Capture Plug-i

Performance controls for distributed telecommunication services

As the Internet and Telecommunications domains merge, open telecommunication service architectures such as TINA, PARLAY and PINT are becoming prevalent. Distributed Computing is a common engineering component in these technologies and promises to bring improvements to the scalability, reliability and flexibility of telecommunications service delivery systems. This distributed approach to service delivery introduces new performance concerns. As service logic is decomposed into software components and distnbuted across network resources, significant additional resource loading is incurred due to inter-node communications. This fact makes the choice of distribution of components in the network and the distribution of load between these components critical design and operational issues which must be resolved to guarantee a high level of service for the customer and a profitable network for the service operator. Previous research in the computer science domain has addressed optimal placement of components from the perspectives of minimising run time, minimising communications costs or balancing of load between network resources. This thesis proposes a more extensive optimisation model, which we argue, is more useful for addressing concerns pertinent to the telecommunications domain. The model focuses on providing optimal throughput and profitability of network resources and on overload protection whilst allowing flexibility in terms of the cost of installation of component copies and differentiation in the treatment of service types, in terms of fairness to the customer and profitability to the operator. Both static (design-time) component distribution and dynamic (run-time) load distribution algorithms are developed using Linear and Mixed Integer Programming techniques. An efficient, but sub-optimal, run-time solution, employing Market-based control, is also proposed. The performance of these algorithms is investigated using a simulation model of a distributed service platform, which is based on TINA service components interacting with the Intelligent Network through gateways. Simulation results are verified using Layered Queuing Network analytic modelling Results show significant performance gains over simpler methods of performance control and demonstrate how trade-offs in network profitability, fairness and network cost are possible

Creation of value with open source software in the telecommunications field

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

Security in Distributed, Grid, Mobile, and Pervasive Computing

This book addresses the increasing demand to guarantee privacy, integrity, and availability of resources in networks and distributed systems. It first reviews security issues and challenges in content distribution networks, describes key agreement protocols based on the Diffie-Hellman key exchange and key management protocols for complex distributed systems like the Internet, and discusses securing design patterns for distributed systems. The next section focuses on security in mobile computing and wireless networks. After a section on grid computing security, the book presents an overview of security solutions for pervasive healthcare systems and surveys wireless sensor network security

Internet of Things Applications - From Research and Innovation to Market Deployment

The book aims to provide a broad overview of various topics of Internet of Things from the research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies, nanoelectronics, cyber physical systems, architecture, interoperability and industrial applications. It is intended to be a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC – Internet of Things European Research Cluster from technology to international cooperation and the global "state of play".The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European research Cluster on the Internet of Things Strategic Research Agenda and presents global views and state of the art results on the challenges facing the research, development and deployment of IoT at the global level. Internet of Things is creating a revolutionary new paradigm, with opportunities in every industry from Health Care, Pharmaceuticals, Food and Beverage, Agriculture, Computer, Electronics Telecommunications, Automotive, Aeronautics, Transportation Energy and Retail to apply the massive potential of the IoT to achieving real-world solutions. The beneficiaries will include as well semiconductor companies, device and product companies, infrastructure software companies, application software companies, consulting companies, telecommunication and cloud service providers. IoT will create new revenues annually for these stakeholders, and potentially create substantial market share shakeups due to increased technology competition. The IoT will fuel technology innovation by creating the means for machines to communicate many different types of information with one another while contributing in the increased value of information created by the number of interconnections among things and the transformation of the processed information into knowledge shared into the Internet of Everything. The success of IoT depends strongly on enabling technology development, market acceptance and standardization, which provides interoperability, compatibility, reliability, and effective operations on a global scale. The connected devices are part of ecosystems connecting people, processes, data, and things which are communicating in the cloud using the increased storage and computing power and pushing for standardization of communication and metadata. In this context security, privacy, safety, trust have to be address by the product manufacturers through the life cycle of their products from design to the support processes. The IoT developments address the whole IoT spectrum - from devices at the edge to cloud and datacentres on the backend and everything in between, through ecosystems are created by industry, research and application stakeholders that enable real-world use cases to accelerate the Internet of Things and establish open interoperability standards and common architectures for IoT solutions. Enabling technologies such as nanoelectronics, sensors/actuators, cyber-physical systems, intelligent device management, smart gateways, telematics, smart network infrastructure, cloud computing and software technologies will create new products, new services, new interfaces by creating smart environments and smart spaces with applications ranging from Smart Cities, smart transport, buildings, energy, grid, to smart health and life. Technical topics discussed in the book include: • Introduction• Internet of Things Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda• Internet of Things in the industrial context: Time for deployment.• Integration of heterogeneous smart objects, applications and services• Evolution from device to semantic and business interoperability• Software define and virtualization of network resources• Innovation through interoperability and standardisation when everything is connected anytime at anyplace• Dynamic context-aware scalable and trust-based IoT Security, Privacy framework• Federated Cloud service management and the Internet of Things• Internet of Things Application