Fixed Mobile Convergence a IMS Approach

The paper is aimed at studying and analyzing the network performance parameters of SIP protocol. SIP is content based protocol, in which various message are required to be transacted so that a session could be created, terminated or modified. Therefore, the objective is to analyze various SIP activities and the delay incurred in session start-up under various network conditions. Proper functioning of IMS platform is dependent on optimum performance of several protocols specified in the standard. Nearly all of the protocols used in IMS are standardized by the IETF. Some of the major protocols are SIP, SDP- signaling protocol, DIAMETERimprovised version of RADIUS protocol,COPS- Common Open Policy Service, H.248- descendant of MEGACo, RTP/RTCPReal Time Protocol/Real Time Control Protocol, etc. Out of all these, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is the prominent protocol used to create, terminate and modify the sessions initiated by the user. In order to improve the performance parameters, this is the area where most of the research work is centralized. Hence, to study various aspects of SIP protocol with respect to the network performance is of great interest

Semi-automated creation of converged iTV services: From macromedia director simulations to services ready for broadcast

While sound and video may capture viewers’ attention, interaction can captivate them. This has not been available prior to the advent of Digital Television. In fact, what lies at the heart of the Digital Television revolution is this new type of interactive content, offered in the form of interactive Television (iTV) services. On top of that, the new world of converged networks has created a demand for a new type of converged services on a range of mobile terminals (Tablet PCs, PDAs and mobile phones). This paper aims at presenting a new approach to service creation that allows for the semi-automatic translation of simulations and rapid prototypes created in the accessible desktop multimedia authoring package Macromedia Director into services ready for broadcast. This is achieved by a series of tools that de-skill and speed-up the process of creating digital TV user interfaces (UI) and applications for mobile terminals. The benefits of rapid prototyping are essential for the production of these new types of services, and are therefore discussed in the first section of this paper. In the following sections, an overview of the operation of content, service, creation and management sub-systems is presented, which illustrates why these tools compose an important and integral part of a system responsible of creating, delivering and managing converged broadcast and telecommunications services. The next section examines a number of metadata languages candidates for describing the iTV services user interface and the schema language adopted in this project. A detailed description of the operation of the two tools is provided to offer an insight of how they can be used to de-skill and speed-up the process of creating digital TV user interfaces and applications for mobile terminals. Finally, representative broadcast oriented and telecommunication oriented converged service components are also introduced, demonstrating how these tools have been used to generate different types of services

Convergence: the next big step

Recently, web based multimedia services have gained popularity and have proven themselves to be viable means of communication. This has inspired the telecommunication service providers and network operators to reinvent themselves to try and provide value added IP centric services. There was need for a system which would allow new services to be introduced rapidly with reduced capital expense (CAPEX) and operational expense (OPEX) through increased efficiency in network utilization. Various organizations and standardization agencies have been working together to establish such a system. Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a result of these efforts. IMS is an application level system. It is being developed by 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) and 3GPP2 (3rd Generation Partnership Project 2) in collaboration with IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union – Telecommunication Standardization Sector), and ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) etc. Initially, the main aim of IMS was to bring together the internet and the cellular world, but it has extended to include traditional wire line telecommunication systems as well. It utilizes existing internet protocols such as SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting protocol), and COPS (Common Open Policy Service) etc, and modifies them to meet the stringent requirements of reliable, real time communication systems. The advantages of IMS include easy service quality management (QoS), mobility management, service control and integration. At present a lot of attention is being paid to providing bundled up services in the home environment. Service providers have been successful in providing traditional telephony, high speed internet and cable services in a single package. But there is very little integration among these services. IMS can provide a way to integrate them as well as extend the possibility of various other services to be added to allow increased automation in the home environment. This thesis extends the concept of IMS to provide convergence and facilitate internetworking of the various bundled services available in the home environment; this may include but is not limited to communications (wired and wireless), entertainment, security etc. In this thesis, I present a converged home environment which has a number of elements providing a variety of communication and entertainment services. The proposed network would allow effective interworking of these elements, based on IMS architecture. My aim is to depict the possible advantages of using IMS to provide convergence, automation and integration at the residential level

Real-time resource availability signaling in IP multimedia subsystem networks

IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) allows the use of unlicensed, non-dedicated and nondeterministic access networks for delivering IP multimedia services. Providing end-to-end Quality-of-Service (QoS) for resource demanding real-time services (e.g. real-time multimedia) over such networks is a challenging task due to varying resource availability of the network and the end-devicei during a single sessionii. A common solution to this problem is adapting service quality and type according to availability of system resources, which requires end-to-end monitoring and signaling of resource availability during a single session. This paper presents an extension of the IMS architecture for real-time resource availability monitoring and signaling. The novelty of the proposed extension is twofold. It takes into account uncontrolled access networks with no resource reservation on the one hand, and end devices on the other. Two system architecture components are introduced for monitoring and signaling of the real-time resource availability in both networks (e.g. bandwidth, buffer space), and end-devices (e.g. battery, CPU, memory, storage), namely a Resource Manager (RM) and a Resource Availability Server (RAS). Our solution does not require any modifications of the IMS architecture and can be implemented as a plug-in

Next generation networks for distributed electronic resources: Opportunities and challenges

The changes in the lifestyle of the people, new applications, technological developments and the telecommunication market drive the adoption Next Generation Network (NGN) as the new network architecture. NGN has a service-centric architecture which promotes agile creation of services and then maintenance of these services with end-to-end QoS support. In the current era, every internet user is a potential electronic resource user. Due to the transition from the traditional mode of collections to the electronic resources and the heterogeneity and distributed nature of the electronic resources, a state of the art communication infrastructure is the key component of electronic resource providers. In this regard, NGNs can offer numerous advantages to the electronic resource providers. In this paper the use of NGNs for delivering distributed electronic resources is investigated. The opportunities and challenges are presented

Network convergence and QoS for future multimedia services in the VISION project

The emerging use of real-time 3D-based multimedia applications imposes strict quality of service (QoS) requirements on both access and core networks. These requirements and their impact to provide end-to-end 3D videoconferencing services have been studied within the Spanish-funded VISION project, where different scenarios were implemented showing an agile stereoscopic video call that might be offered to the general public in the near future. In view of the requirements, we designed an integrated access and core converged network architecture which provides the requested QoS to end-to-end IP sessions. Novel functional blocks are proposed to control core optical networks, the functionality of the standard ones is redefined, and the signaling improved to better meet the requirements of future multimedia services. An experimental test-bed to assess the feasibility of the solution was also deployed. In such test-bed, set-up and release of end-to-end sessions meeting specific QoS requirements are shown and the impact of QoS degradation in terms of the user perceived quality degradation is quantified. In addition, scalability results show that the proposed signaling architecture is able to cope with large number of requests introducing almost negligible delay

Investigation of an intelligent personalised service recommendation system in an IMS based cellular mobile network

Success or failure of future information and communication services in general and mobile communications in particular is greatly dependent on the level of personalisations they can offer. While the provision of anytime, anywhere, anyhow services has been the focus of wireless telecommunications in recent years, personalisation however has gained more and more attention as the unique selling point of mobile devices. Smart phones should be intelligent enough to match user’s unique needs and preferences to provide a truly personalised service tailored for the individual user. In the first part of this thesis, the importance and role of personalisation in future mobile networks is studied. This is followed, by an agent based futuristic user scenario that addresses the provision of rich data services independent of location. Scenario analysis identifies the requirements and challenges to be solved for the realisation of a personalised service. An architecture based on IP Multimedia Subsystem is proposed for mobility and to provide service continuity whilst roaming between two different access standards. Another aspect of personalisation, which is user preference modelling, is investigated in the context of service selection in a multi 3rd party service provider environment. A model is proposed for the automatic acquisition of user preferences to assist in service selection decision-making. User preferences are modelled based on a two-level Bayesian Metanetwork. Personal agents incorporating the proposed model provide answers to preference related queries such as cost, QoS and service provider reputation. This allows users to have their preferences considered automatically

Design & Deploy Web 2.0 enable services over Next Generation Network Platform

The Next Generation Networks (NGN) aims to integrate for IP-based telecom infrastructures and provide most advance & high speed emerging value added services. NGN capable to provide higher innovative services, these services will able to integrate communication and Web service into a single platform. IP Multimedia Subsystem, a NGN leading technology, enables a variety of NGN-compliant communications services to interoperate while being accessed through different kinds of access networks, preferably broadband. IMS-NGN services essential by both consumer and corporate users are by now used to access services, even communications services through the web and web-based communities and social networks, It is key for success of IMS-based services to be provided with efficient web access, so users can benefit from those new services by using web-based applications and user interfaces, not only NGN-IMS User Equipments and SIP protocol. Many Service are under planning which provided only under convergence of IMS & Web 2.0. Convergence between Web 2.0 and NGN-IMS creates and serves new invented innovative, entertainment and information appealing as well as user centric services and applications. These services merge features from WWW and Communication worlds. On the one hand, interactivity, ubiquity, social orientation, user participation and content generation, etc. are relevant characteristics coming from Web 2.0 services. Parallel IMS enables services including multimedia telephony, media sharing (video-audio), instant messaging with presence and context, online directory, etc. all of them applicable to mobile, fixed or convergent telecom networks. With this paper, this paper brings out the benefits of adopting web 2.0 technologies for telecom services. As the services are today mainly driven by the user's needs, and proposed the concept of unique customizable service interface