View
2
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
Home Area Networks and IPTV
Home Area Networks and IPTV
Jean-Gabriel Reacutemy
Charlotte Letamendia
First published 2011 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley amp Sons Inc Adapted and updated from Les reacuteseaux domiciliaires et lIPTV published 2009 in France by Hermes ScienceLavoisier copy Institut Teacuteleacutecom et LAVOISIER 2009
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study or criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 this publication may only be reproduced stored or transmitted in any form or by any means with the prior permission in writing of the publishers or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address
ISTE Ltd John Wiley amp Sons Inc 27-37 St Georgersquos Road 111 River Street London SW19 4EU Hoboken NJ 07030 UK USA
wwwistecouk wwwwileycom
copy ISTE Ltd 2011 The rights of Jean-Gabriel Reacutemy and Charlotte Letamendia to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988
____________________________________________________________________________________ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Remy Jean-Gabriel Home area networks and IPTV Jean-Gabriel Remy Charlotte Letamendia p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978-1-84821-295-4 1 Home computer networks 2 Internet television I Letamendia Charlotte II Title TK510575R46 2011 00468--dc22
2011006655
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-84821-295-4 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe Chippenham and Eastbourne Cover photo created by Atelier Isatis Dijon France
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Services Offered by Home Area Networks 1
11 Why home networking 1 12 Service convergence 2
121 Triple play 4 122 Quadruple play 6 123 Services linked to the person 7 124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing 8
13 IP or non-IP home area networks 8 131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks 10
14 Bibliography 11 15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates 11
151 Progressive deployment 13 152 Client ubiquity 16
Chapter 2 Receiving Television via Internet IPTV 19
21 Introduction 20 22 Digital TV formats (DVB and MPEG standards) 20
221 MPEG 20 222 DVB 21
23 Digital TV transmission through IP 29 231 History and market 29 232 The evolution of consumer trends 32
24 IPTV elements of the network 33 241 General points 33 242 Data transmission in an IPTV network 37 243 Quality of service 40
vi Home Area Networks and IPTV
244 IP channel-switching 48 245 IPTV in a local loop 49
25 Set-top box (STB) hardware and software design 50 251 IPTV middleware 51 252 Content protection 52 253 Interactivity 52
26 Bibliography 53 27 Appendix notes on digital television 53
271 Video 53 272 Screens size and resolution 55 273 Production 57
Chapter 3 Household Internet Connections 61
31 Network cables 61 311 Introduction 61 312 Communication media 63 313 The DOCSISEURODOCSIS standard 69 314 Modems and DOCSISEURODOCSIS CMTS 72 315 RF DOCSISEURODOCSIS signals 73 316 Sizing optical nodes for DOCSIS services 77 317 Digital Television 78 318 Analog television 79 319 The last mile from local loop VHF to fiber 80 3110 Transport and distribution of signals from headend to local loops 84
32 Internet access by means of outdoor PLC 91 321 Structure of an electrical supply network 92 322 Use of the electric pair by PLC 93 323 Frequencies used by PLC 95 324 PLC standards 96 325 Administration of an outdoor PLC 97
33 Fiber optics to the home (FTTH) 98 331 Introduction 98 332 Fiber optic technologies 99 333 Fiber optic cables 104 334 Lasers LEDs and optical receivers 106 335 Fiber optic subscriber connections FTTx 107 336 Fiber to the Home (FTTH) 119
34 xDSL networks 120 341 Introduction 120 342 General points 121 343 ADSL technology 124
Table of Contents vii
344 Data organization ADSL frame and superframe 128 345 Elements of ADSL access 129 346 Protocol architecture for ADSL 133 347 Gigabit Ethernet transmission 139 348 Unbundling 140 349 Services over an ADSL network 141
35 High bit rate radio satellite WiMAX and LTE 144 351 Introduction 144 352 Worldwide Inter-operability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) 145 353 LTE (-SAE) 149 354 Internet by satellite 151
36 Bibliography 152
Chapter 4 Home Area Network Technologies 155
41 Copper pair cables 155 42 The home network in coaxial cable 157
421 Communication mediums 158 422 Transported signals DOCSISEURODOCSIS 159 423 Terminal section 159 424 FTTLA beyond 2012 160
43 Home networks using indoor power line communications 160 431 Standards and norms 163 432 Possibility of two different networks 164 433 Safeguarding the local network 164 434 Analysis and administration 164
44 LTE femtocells 165 441 Introduction 165 442 The LTE standard and femtocells 166
45 Plastic optical fibers 167 451 POF transmission 167 452 IEEE 1394 standard 171 453 Recognition of other mediums and external connections 174
46 WiFi home area networks 175 461 Introduction 175 462 General points 176 463 Connection to the Internet using radio waves 177 464 WiFi protocol layers 177 465 Successive WiFi standards 183 466 Transmission technologies 183 467 WiFi network deployment 189 468 Privacy 195
viii Home Area Networks and IPTV
469 80211n the future of WiFi 200 47 Home gateway 204 48 Bibliography 206
Chapter 5 Software Structure used in Home Area Networks 207
51 Characteristics of Home Area Networks 207 511 Heterogeneity 208 512 Dynamicity 209 513 Absence of an administrator 210
52 The digital leisure network UPNPDLNA 211 521 The UPNPDLNA organization and certification 211 522 Devices service and action models 213 523 Classes of devices home mobile internetwork 217 524 Formats images audio video 222 525 Network and transport of media 223 526 Conclusion 226
53 Home systems networks 226 531 The needs of home systems networks 226 532 MAC and physical layers on an RF network IEEE 802154 228 533 Networking and datalinking over an RF network example of ZigBee 233 534 Networking and datalinking over an electric cabled network 235
Chapter 6 Software Structures in Use for Home Area Networks 237
61 Service gateways 237 611 The role of a service gateway 237 612 Service administration OSGi bundles 239 613 Collection and redistribution of information contexts and methods 242
62 Security in home systems and multimedia networks 242 621 Service access methods 242 622 Virtual networks (VPN) 244
63 Bibliography 245
Chapter 7 Service Platforms 247
71 Service platform for a managed network 247 711 Services 247
Table of Contents ix
712 Servers 249 72 Internet kiosk on an unmanaged network 252
721 General points 252 722 Security 253 723 Private life 254 724 Development languages of applications 254
73 Sharing resources 255
Glossary 259
Index 271
Chapter 1
Services Offered by Home Area Networks
11 Why home networking
The current evolution of society in developed countries has led to very high speed access to information networks being seen as essential in order to avoid marginalization
Following the lead of North America households are no longer happy with a single television program and wish to receive two to five programs ndash and sometimes more ndash on various different television sets ranging from high definition flat screens to VGA or QVGA screens When we take into account the increasing demands for digital television ndash and also those for Internet surfing VoIP and new services to be in used in the home ndash we have to consider home area networks carrying more than 50 Mbps (for effective capacity not including error correction mechanisms) Most forecasts converge on a value of 100 Mbps This has an impact on the Internet access technology to be deployed in the future
At the same time an awareness of environmental problems notably those linked to travel has led us to consider carrying out tasks at home which would previously have been done in the
2 Home Area Networks and IPTV
office including in design offices with CAD (computer-aided design) directly linked (or not) to automatons and robots on the production floor High speed Internet allows the possibility of real collaborative work between people across the country and the world As a result a substantial saving in hydrocarbon consumption is achieved as well as an improvement in the quality of life Most of all this collaborative effort centered around CAD if applied to all technological sectors could lead to revival and growth in the industrial economy
In addition an ageing population is leading to the development of systems for monitoring patients at home under medical observation or even for home hospitalization
Finally research into energy efficiency requires the use of systems optimizing consumption by means of automatons and associated sensors for ad hoc information processing
All these needs require the household distribution of a digital bit rate estimated to be at least 100 Mbps and maybe even 1 Gbps in the medium term if Japan and South Korearsquos plans are to be believed This distribution can either be ensured through a single distribution network or by more than one Given that each network has its own distinctiveness and drawbacks it is far better to avoid separate rollouts
12 Service convergence
Today the industrial breakthrough of standard IP components has pushed service providers into adopting these standards no matter what technology was previously used and even if changing leads only to minor optimization This technological convergence has also been brought about by the ever-improving performance of electronic chips leading to the widespread availability of ldquoall digitalrdquo systems
The performance of these components is distinguished by a significantly increasing processing power as well as significantly decreasing power consumption when measured for the same
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 3
service Low-cost integrated circuits with dimensions of 65 nanometers were the basis of most electronic devices at the start of 2009 since 2010 45 nanometer circuits have been mass produced and have brought with them an even better performance Some 32 nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits are now ready for manufacture despite investment costs
NOTE ndash CMOS technology is a technology for constructing integrated circuits It is used in microprocessors microcontrollers static RAM and other digital logic circuits for many types of communication including digital TV devices
This processing power will allow the use of algorithms some of them known for more than two decades which require such additional power Two fields are revolutionized in this way
ndash mobile communications which can from now on adopt revolutionary signal processing techniques such as turbo codes MIMO or numerous variations of OFDM These technologies are used in the new mobile radiocommunication systems in LTE as well as in WiMAX (and even by the latest generation of WiFi 80211n)
ndash data compression algorithms for images and sound After MPEG2 already revolutionary which dominated the audiovisual sector in around 2000 comes MPEG4-AVC-Part 10-High Profile (simply and incorrectly called MPEG4) for moving images New very high performance audio coders AAC or DD+ are also available The H264 (another name for the MPEG4 coding) allows the possibility of high definition video transmission with a digital bit rate of approximately 7 Mbps (between 5 and 10 Mbps) The bit rate required depends on the choice of number of pixels (the standard allows a large range of image definitions) and in addition the quality of the coding This coding has not fully developed and should improve in the coming two to three years Improvement in performance is made with a constant decoder in the tradition of MPEG the decoder is first and foremost technically standardized in order to allow very large mass production The end result is that an MPEG4 decoder can process
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Home Area Networks and IPTV
Home Area Networks and IPTV
Jean-Gabriel Reacutemy
Charlotte Letamendia
First published 2011 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley amp Sons Inc Adapted and updated from Les reacuteseaux domiciliaires et lIPTV published 2009 in France by Hermes ScienceLavoisier copy Institut Teacuteleacutecom et LAVOISIER 2009
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study or criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 this publication may only be reproduced stored or transmitted in any form or by any means with the prior permission in writing of the publishers or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address
ISTE Ltd John Wiley amp Sons Inc 27-37 St Georgersquos Road 111 River Street London SW19 4EU Hoboken NJ 07030 UK USA
wwwistecouk wwwwileycom
copy ISTE Ltd 2011 The rights of Jean-Gabriel Reacutemy and Charlotte Letamendia to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988
____________________________________________________________________________________ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Remy Jean-Gabriel Home area networks and IPTV Jean-Gabriel Remy Charlotte Letamendia p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978-1-84821-295-4 1 Home computer networks 2 Internet television I Letamendia Charlotte II Title TK510575R46 2011 00468--dc22
2011006655
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-84821-295-4 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe Chippenham and Eastbourne Cover photo created by Atelier Isatis Dijon France
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Services Offered by Home Area Networks 1
11 Why home networking 1 12 Service convergence 2
121 Triple play 4 122 Quadruple play 6 123 Services linked to the person 7 124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing 8
13 IP or non-IP home area networks 8 131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks 10
14 Bibliography 11 15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates 11
151 Progressive deployment 13 152 Client ubiquity 16
Chapter 2 Receiving Television via Internet IPTV 19
21 Introduction 20 22 Digital TV formats (DVB and MPEG standards) 20
221 MPEG 20 222 DVB 21
23 Digital TV transmission through IP 29 231 History and market 29 232 The evolution of consumer trends 32
24 IPTV elements of the network 33 241 General points 33 242 Data transmission in an IPTV network 37 243 Quality of service 40
vi Home Area Networks and IPTV
244 IP channel-switching 48 245 IPTV in a local loop 49
25 Set-top box (STB) hardware and software design 50 251 IPTV middleware 51 252 Content protection 52 253 Interactivity 52
26 Bibliography 53 27 Appendix notes on digital television 53
271 Video 53 272 Screens size and resolution 55 273 Production 57
Chapter 3 Household Internet Connections 61
31 Network cables 61 311 Introduction 61 312 Communication media 63 313 The DOCSISEURODOCSIS standard 69 314 Modems and DOCSISEURODOCSIS CMTS 72 315 RF DOCSISEURODOCSIS signals 73 316 Sizing optical nodes for DOCSIS services 77 317 Digital Television 78 318 Analog television 79 319 The last mile from local loop VHF to fiber 80 3110 Transport and distribution of signals from headend to local loops 84
32 Internet access by means of outdoor PLC 91 321 Structure of an electrical supply network 92 322 Use of the electric pair by PLC 93 323 Frequencies used by PLC 95 324 PLC standards 96 325 Administration of an outdoor PLC 97
33 Fiber optics to the home (FTTH) 98 331 Introduction 98 332 Fiber optic technologies 99 333 Fiber optic cables 104 334 Lasers LEDs and optical receivers 106 335 Fiber optic subscriber connections FTTx 107 336 Fiber to the Home (FTTH) 119
34 xDSL networks 120 341 Introduction 120 342 General points 121 343 ADSL technology 124
Table of Contents vii
344 Data organization ADSL frame and superframe 128 345 Elements of ADSL access 129 346 Protocol architecture for ADSL 133 347 Gigabit Ethernet transmission 139 348 Unbundling 140 349 Services over an ADSL network 141
35 High bit rate radio satellite WiMAX and LTE 144 351 Introduction 144 352 Worldwide Inter-operability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) 145 353 LTE (-SAE) 149 354 Internet by satellite 151
36 Bibliography 152
Chapter 4 Home Area Network Technologies 155
41 Copper pair cables 155 42 The home network in coaxial cable 157
421 Communication mediums 158 422 Transported signals DOCSISEURODOCSIS 159 423 Terminal section 159 424 FTTLA beyond 2012 160
43 Home networks using indoor power line communications 160 431 Standards and norms 163 432 Possibility of two different networks 164 433 Safeguarding the local network 164 434 Analysis and administration 164
44 LTE femtocells 165 441 Introduction 165 442 The LTE standard and femtocells 166
45 Plastic optical fibers 167 451 POF transmission 167 452 IEEE 1394 standard 171 453 Recognition of other mediums and external connections 174
46 WiFi home area networks 175 461 Introduction 175 462 General points 176 463 Connection to the Internet using radio waves 177 464 WiFi protocol layers 177 465 Successive WiFi standards 183 466 Transmission technologies 183 467 WiFi network deployment 189 468 Privacy 195
viii Home Area Networks and IPTV
469 80211n the future of WiFi 200 47 Home gateway 204 48 Bibliography 206
Chapter 5 Software Structure used in Home Area Networks 207
51 Characteristics of Home Area Networks 207 511 Heterogeneity 208 512 Dynamicity 209 513 Absence of an administrator 210
52 The digital leisure network UPNPDLNA 211 521 The UPNPDLNA organization and certification 211 522 Devices service and action models 213 523 Classes of devices home mobile internetwork 217 524 Formats images audio video 222 525 Network and transport of media 223 526 Conclusion 226
53 Home systems networks 226 531 The needs of home systems networks 226 532 MAC and physical layers on an RF network IEEE 802154 228 533 Networking and datalinking over an RF network example of ZigBee 233 534 Networking and datalinking over an electric cabled network 235
Chapter 6 Software Structures in Use for Home Area Networks 237
61 Service gateways 237 611 The role of a service gateway 237 612 Service administration OSGi bundles 239 613 Collection and redistribution of information contexts and methods 242
62 Security in home systems and multimedia networks 242 621 Service access methods 242 622 Virtual networks (VPN) 244
63 Bibliography 245
Chapter 7 Service Platforms 247
71 Service platform for a managed network 247 711 Services 247
Table of Contents ix
712 Servers 249 72 Internet kiosk on an unmanaged network 252
721 General points 252 722 Security 253 723 Private life 254 724 Development languages of applications 254
73 Sharing resources 255
Glossary 259
Index 271
Chapter 1
Services Offered by Home Area Networks
11 Why home networking
The current evolution of society in developed countries has led to very high speed access to information networks being seen as essential in order to avoid marginalization
Following the lead of North America households are no longer happy with a single television program and wish to receive two to five programs ndash and sometimes more ndash on various different television sets ranging from high definition flat screens to VGA or QVGA screens When we take into account the increasing demands for digital television ndash and also those for Internet surfing VoIP and new services to be in used in the home ndash we have to consider home area networks carrying more than 50 Mbps (for effective capacity not including error correction mechanisms) Most forecasts converge on a value of 100 Mbps This has an impact on the Internet access technology to be deployed in the future
At the same time an awareness of environmental problems notably those linked to travel has led us to consider carrying out tasks at home which would previously have been done in the
2 Home Area Networks and IPTV
office including in design offices with CAD (computer-aided design) directly linked (or not) to automatons and robots on the production floor High speed Internet allows the possibility of real collaborative work between people across the country and the world As a result a substantial saving in hydrocarbon consumption is achieved as well as an improvement in the quality of life Most of all this collaborative effort centered around CAD if applied to all technological sectors could lead to revival and growth in the industrial economy
In addition an ageing population is leading to the development of systems for monitoring patients at home under medical observation or even for home hospitalization
Finally research into energy efficiency requires the use of systems optimizing consumption by means of automatons and associated sensors for ad hoc information processing
All these needs require the household distribution of a digital bit rate estimated to be at least 100 Mbps and maybe even 1 Gbps in the medium term if Japan and South Korearsquos plans are to be believed This distribution can either be ensured through a single distribution network or by more than one Given that each network has its own distinctiveness and drawbacks it is far better to avoid separate rollouts
12 Service convergence
Today the industrial breakthrough of standard IP components has pushed service providers into adopting these standards no matter what technology was previously used and even if changing leads only to minor optimization This technological convergence has also been brought about by the ever-improving performance of electronic chips leading to the widespread availability of ldquoall digitalrdquo systems
The performance of these components is distinguished by a significantly increasing processing power as well as significantly decreasing power consumption when measured for the same
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 3
service Low-cost integrated circuits with dimensions of 65 nanometers were the basis of most electronic devices at the start of 2009 since 2010 45 nanometer circuits have been mass produced and have brought with them an even better performance Some 32 nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits are now ready for manufacture despite investment costs
NOTE ndash CMOS technology is a technology for constructing integrated circuits It is used in microprocessors microcontrollers static RAM and other digital logic circuits for many types of communication including digital TV devices
This processing power will allow the use of algorithms some of them known for more than two decades which require such additional power Two fields are revolutionized in this way
ndash mobile communications which can from now on adopt revolutionary signal processing techniques such as turbo codes MIMO or numerous variations of OFDM These technologies are used in the new mobile radiocommunication systems in LTE as well as in WiMAX (and even by the latest generation of WiFi 80211n)
ndash data compression algorithms for images and sound After MPEG2 already revolutionary which dominated the audiovisual sector in around 2000 comes MPEG4-AVC-Part 10-High Profile (simply and incorrectly called MPEG4) for moving images New very high performance audio coders AAC or DD+ are also available The H264 (another name for the MPEG4 coding) allows the possibility of high definition video transmission with a digital bit rate of approximately 7 Mbps (between 5 and 10 Mbps) The bit rate required depends on the choice of number of pixels (the standard allows a large range of image definitions) and in addition the quality of the coding This coding has not fully developed and should improve in the coming two to three years Improvement in performance is made with a constant decoder in the tradition of MPEG the decoder is first and foremost technically standardized in order to allow very large mass production The end result is that an MPEG4 decoder can process
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Home Area Networks and IPTV
Jean-Gabriel Reacutemy
Charlotte Letamendia
First published 2011 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley amp Sons Inc Adapted and updated from Les reacuteseaux domiciliaires et lIPTV published 2009 in France by Hermes ScienceLavoisier copy Institut Teacuteleacutecom et LAVOISIER 2009
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study or criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 this publication may only be reproduced stored or transmitted in any form or by any means with the prior permission in writing of the publishers or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address
ISTE Ltd John Wiley amp Sons Inc 27-37 St Georgersquos Road 111 River Street London SW19 4EU Hoboken NJ 07030 UK USA
wwwistecouk wwwwileycom
copy ISTE Ltd 2011 The rights of Jean-Gabriel Reacutemy and Charlotte Letamendia to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988
____________________________________________________________________________________ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Remy Jean-Gabriel Home area networks and IPTV Jean-Gabriel Remy Charlotte Letamendia p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978-1-84821-295-4 1 Home computer networks 2 Internet television I Letamendia Charlotte II Title TK510575R46 2011 00468--dc22
2011006655
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-84821-295-4 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe Chippenham and Eastbourne Cover photo created by Atelier Isatis Dijon France
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Services Offered by Home Area Networks 1
11 Why home networking 1 12 Service convergence 2
121 Triple play 4 122 Quadruple play 6 123 Services linked to the person 7 124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing 8
13 IP or non-IP home area networks 8 131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks 10
14 Bibliography 11 15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates 11
151 Progressive deployment 13 152 Client ubiquity 16
Chapter 2 Receiving Television via Internet IPTV 19
21 Introduction 20 22 Digital TV formats (DVB and MPEG standards) 20
221 MPEG 20 222 DVB 21
23 Digital TV transmission through IP 29 231 History and market 29 232 The evolution of consumer trends 32
24 IPTV elements of the network 33 241 General points 33 242 Data transmission in an IPTV network 37 243 Quality of service 40
vi Home Area Networks and IPTV
244 IP channel-switching 48 245 IPTV in a local loop 49
25 Set-top box (STB) hardware and software design 50 251 IPTV middleware 51 252 Content protection 52 253 Interactivity 52
26 Bibliography 53 27 Appendix notes on digital television 53
271 Video 53 272 Screens size and resolution 55 273 Production 57
Chapter 3 Household Internet Connections 61
31 Network cables 61 311 Introduction 61 312 Communication media 63 313 The DOCSISEURODOCSIS standard 69 314 Modems and DOCSISEURODOCSIS CMTS 72 315 RF DOCSISEURODOCSIS signals 73 316 Sizing optical nodes for DOCSIS services 77 317 Digital Television 78 318 Analog television 79 319 The last mile from local loop VHF to fiber 80 3110 Transport and distribution of signals from headend to local loops 84
32 Internet access by means of outdoor PLC 91 321 Structure of an electrical supply network 92 322 Use of the electric pair by PLC 93 323 Frequencies used by PLC 95 324 PLC standards 96 325 Administration of an outdoor PLC 97
33 Fiber optics to the home (FTTH) 98 331 Introduction 98 332 Fiber optic technologies 99 333 Fiber optic cables 104 334 Lasers LEDs and optical receivers 106 335 Fiber optic subscriber connections FTTx 107 336 Fiber to the Home (FTTH) 119
34 xDSL networks 120 341 Introduction 120 342 General points 121 343 ADSL technology 124
Table of Contents vii
344 Data organization ADSL frame and superframe 128 345 Elements of ADSL access 129 346 Protocol architecture for ADSL 133 347 Gigabit Ethernet transmission 139 348 Unbundling 140 349 Services over an ADSL network 141
35 High bit rate radio satellite WiMAX and LTE 144 351 Introduction 144 352 Worldwide Inter-operability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) 145 353 LTE (-SAE) 149 354 Internet by satellite 151
36 Bibliography 152
Chapter 4 Home Area Network Technologies 155
41 Copper pair cables 155 42 The home network in coaxial cable 157
421 Communication mediums 158 422 Transported signals DOCSISEURODOCSIS 159 423 Terminal section 159 424 FTTLA beyond 2012 160
43 Home networks using indoor power line communications 160 431 Standards and norms 163 432 Possibility of two different networks 164 433 Safeguarding the local network 164 434 Analysis and administration 164
44 LTE femtocells 165 441 Introduction 165 442 The LTE standard and femtocells 166
45 Plastic optical fibers 167 451 POF transmission 167 452 IEEE 1394 standard 171 453 Recognition of other mediums and external connections 174
46 WiFi home area networks 175 461 Introduction 175 462 General points 176 463 Connection to the Internet using radio waves 177 464 WiFi protocol layers 177 465 Successive WiFi standards 183 466 Transmission technologies 183 467 WiFi network deployment 189 468 Privacy 195
viii Home Area Networks and IPTV
469 80211n the future of WiFi 200 47 Home gateway 204 48 Bibliography 206
Chapter 5 Software Structure used in Home Area Networks 207
51 Characteristics of Home Area Networks 207 511 Heterogeneity 208 512 Dynamicity 209 513 Absence of an administrator 210
52 The digital leisure network UPNPDLNA 211 521 The UPNPDLNA organization and certification 211 522 Devices service and action models 213 523 Classes of devices home mobile internetwork 217 524 Formats images audio video 222 525 Network and transport of media 223 526 Conclusion 226
53 Home systems networks 226 531 The needs of home systems networks 226 532 MAC and physical layers on an RF network IEEE 802154 228 533 Networking and datalinking over an RF network example of ZigBee 233 534 Networking and datalinking over an electric cabled network 235
Chapter 6 Software Structures in Use for Home Area Networks 237
61 Service gateways 237 611 The role of a service gateway 237 612 Service administration OSGi bundles 239 613 Collection and redistribution of information contexts and methods 242
62 Security in home systems and multimedia networks 242 621 Service access methods 242 622 Virtual networks (VPN) 244
63 Bibliography 245
Chapter 7 Service Platforms 247
71 Service platform for a managed network 247 711 Services 247
Table of Contents ix
712 Servers 249 72 Internet kiosk on an unmanaged network 252
721 General points 252 722 Security 253 723 Private life 254 724 Development languages of applications 254
73 Sharing resources 255
Glossary 259
Index 271
Chapter 1
Services Offered by Home Area Networks
11 Why home networking
The current evolution of society in developed countries has led to very high speed access to information networks being seen as essential in order to avoid marginalization
Following the lead of North America households are no longer happy with a single television program and wish to receive two to five programs ndash and sometimes more ndash on various different television sets ranging from high definition flat screens to VGA or QVGA screens When we take into account the increasing demands for digital television ndash and also those for Internet surfing VoIP and new services to be in used in the home ndash we have to consider home area networks carrying more than 50 Mbps (for effective capacity not including error correction mechanisms) Most forecasts converge on a value of 100 Mbps This has an impact on the Internet access technology to be deployed in the future
At the same time an awareness of environmental problems notably those linked to travel has led us to consider carrying out tasks at home which would previously have been done in the
2 Home Area Networks and IPTV
office including in design offices with CAD (computer-aided design) directly linked (or not) to automatons and robots on the production floor High speed Internet allows the possibility of real collaborative work between people across the country and the world As a result a substantial saving in hydrocarbon consumption is achieved as well as an improvement in the quality of life Most of all this collaborative effort centered around CAD if applied to all technological sectors could lead to revival and growth in the industrial economy
In addition an ageing population is leading to the development of systems for monitoring patients at home under medical observation or even for home hospitalization
Finally research into energy efficiency requires the use of systems optimizing consumption by means of automatons and associated sensors for ad hoc information processing
All these needs require the household distribution of a digital bit rate estimated to be at least 100 Mbps and maybe even 1 Gbps in the medium term if Japan and South Korearsquos plans are to be believed This distribution can either be ensured through a single distribution network or by more than one Given that each network has its own distinctiveness and drawbacks it is far better to avoid separate rollouts
12 Service convergence
Today the industrial breakthrough of standard IP components has pushed service providers into adopting these standards no matter what technology was previously used and even if changing leads only to minor optimization This technological convergence has also been brought about by the ever-improving performance of electronic chips leading to the widespread availability of ldquoall digitalrdquo systems
The performance of these components is distinguished by a significantly increasing processing power as well as significantly decreasing power consumption when measured for the same
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 3
service Low-cost integrated circuits with dimensions of 65 nanometers were the basis of most electronic devices at the start of 2009 since 2010 45 nanometer circuits have been mass produced and have brought with them an even better performance Some 32 nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits are now ready for manufacture despite investment costs
NOTE ndash CMOS technology is a technology for constructing integrated circuits It is used in microprocessors microcontrollers static RAM and other digital logic circuits for many types of communication including digital TV devices
This processing power will allow the use of algorithms some of them known for more than two decades which require such additional power Two fields are revolutionized in this way
ndash mobile communications which can from now on adopt revolutionary signal processing techniques such as turbo codes MIMO or numerous variations of OFDM These technologies are used in the new mobile radiocommunication systems in LTE as well as in WiMAX (and even by the latest generation of WiFi 80211n)
ndash data compression algorithms for images and sound After MPEG2 already revolutionary which dominated the audiovisual sector in around 2000 comes MPEG4-AVC-Part 10-High Profile (simply and incorrectly called MPEG4) for moving images New very high performance audio coders AAC or DD+ are also available The H264 (another name for the MPEG4 coding) allows the possibility of high definition video transmission with a digital bit rate of approximately 7 Mbps (between 5 and 10 Mbps) The bit rate required depends on the choice of number of pixels (the standard allows a large range of image definitions) and in addition the quality of the coding This coding has not fully developed and should improve in the coming two to three years Improvement in performance is made with a constant decoder in the tradition of MPEG the decoder is first and foremost technically standardized in order to allow very large mass production The end result is that an MPEG4 decoder can process
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
First published 2011 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley amp Sons Inc Adapted and updated from Les reacuteseaux domiciliaires et lIPTV published 2009 in France by Hermes ScienceLavoisier copy Institut Teacuteleacutecom et LAVOISIER 2009
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study or criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 this publication may only be reproduced stored or transmitted in any form or by any means with the prior permission in writing of the publishers or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address
ISTE Ltd John Wiley amp Sons Inc 27-37 St Georgersquos Road 111 River Street London SW19 4EU Hoboken NJ 07030 UK USA
wwwistecouk wwwwileycom
copy ISTE Ltd 2011 The rights of Jean-Gabriel Reacutemy and Charlotte Letamendia to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988
____________________________________________________________________________________ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Remy Jean-Gabriel Home area networks and IPTV Jean-Gabriel Remy Charlotte Letamendia p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978-1-84821-295-4 1 Home computer networks 2 Internet television I Letamendia Charlotte II Title TK510575R46 2011 00468--dc22
2011006655
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-84821-295-4 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe Chippenham and Eastbourne Cover photo created by Atelier Isatis Dijon France
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Services Offered by Home Area Networks 1
11 Why home networking 1 12 Service convergence 2
121 Triple play 4 122 Quadruple play 6 123 Services linked to the person 7 124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing 8
13 IP or non-IP home area networks 8 131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks 10
14 Bibliography 11 15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates 11
151 Progressive deployment 13 152 Client ubiquity 16
Chapter 2 Receiving Television via Internet IPTV 19
21 Introduction 20 22 Digital TV formats (DVB and MPEG standards) 20
221 MPEG 20 222 DVB 21
23 Digital TV transmission through IP 29 231 History and market 29 232 The evolution of consumer trends 32
24 IPTV elements of the network 33 241 General points 33 242 Data transmission in an IPTV network 37 243 Quality of service 40
vi Home Area Networks and IPTV
244 IP channel-switching 48 245 IPTV in a local loop 49
25 Set-top box (STB) hardware and software design 50 251 IPTV middleware 51 252 Content protection 52 253 Interactivity 52
26 Bibliography 53 27 Appendix notes on digital television 53
271 Video 53 272 Screens size and resolution 55 273 Production 57
Chapter 3 Household Internet Connections 61
31 Network cables 61 311 Introduction 61 312 Communication media 63 313 The DOCSISEURODOCSIS standard 69 314 Modems and DOCSISEURODOCSIS CMTS 72 315 RF DOCSISEURODOCSIS signals 73 316 Sizing optical nodes for DOCSIS services 77 317 Digital Television 78 318 Analog television 79 319 The last mile from local loop VHF to fiber 80 3110 Transport and distribution of signals from headend to local loops 84
32 Internet access by means of outdoor PLC 91 321 Structure of an electrical supply network 92 322 Use of the electric pair by PLC 93 323 Frequencies used by PLC 95 324 PLC standards 96 325 Administration of an outdoor PLC 97
33 Fiber optics to the home (FTTH) 98 331 Introduction 98 332 Fiber optic technologies 99 333 Fiber optic cables 104 334 Lasers LEDs and optical receivers 106 335 Fiber optic subscriber connections FTTx 107 336 Fiber to the Home (FTTH) 119
34 xDSL networks 120 341 Introduction 120 342 General points 121 343 ADSL technology 124
Table of Contents vii
344 Data organization ADSL frame and superframe 128 345 Elements of ADSL access 129 346 Protocol architecture for ADSL 133 347 Gigabit Ethernet transmission 139 348 Unbundling 140 349 Services over an ADSL network 141
35 High bit rate radio satellite WiMAX and LTE 144 351 Introduction 144 352 Worldwide Inter-operability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) 145 353 LTE (-SAE) 149 354 Internet by satellite 151
36 Bibliography 152
Chapter 4 Home Area Network Technologies 155
41 Copper pair cables 155 42 The home network in coaxial cable 157
421 Communication mediums 158 422 Transported signals DOCSISEURODOCSIS 159 423 Terminal section 159 424 FTTLA beyond 2012 160
43 Home networks using indoor power line communications 160 431 Standards and norms 163 432 Possibility of two different networks 164 433 Safeguarding the local network 164 434 Analysis and administration 164
44 LTE femtocells 165 441 Introduction 165 442 The LTE standard and femtocells 166
45 Plastic optical fibers 167 451 POF transmission 167 452 IEEE 1394 standard 171 453 Recognition of other mediums and external connections 174
46 WiFi home area networks 175 461 Introduction 175 462 General points 176 463 Connection to the Internet using radio waves 177 464 WiFi protocol layers 177 465 Successive WiFi standards 183 466 Transmission technologies 183 467 WiFi network deployment 189 468 Privacy 195
viii Home Area Networks and IPTV
469 80211n the future of WiFi 200 47 Home gateway 204 48 Bibliography 206
Chapter 5 Software Structure used in Home Area Networks 207
51 Characteristics of Home Area Networks 207 511 Heterogeneity 208 512 Dynamicity 209 513 Absence of an administrator 210
52 The digital leisure network UPNPDLNA 211 521 The UPNPDLNA organization and certification 211 522 Devices service and action models 213 523 Classes of devices home mobile internetwork 217 524 Formats images audio video 222 525 Network and transport of media 223 526 Conclusion 226
53 Home systems networks 226 531 The needs of home systems networks 226 532 MAC and physical layers on an RF network IEEE 802154 228 533 Networking and datalinking over an RF network example of ZigBee 233 534 Networking and datalinking over an electric cabled network 235
Chapter 6 Software Structures in Use for Home Area Networks 237
61 Service gateways 237 611 The role of a service gateway 237 612 Service administration OSGi bundles 239 613 Collection and redistribution of information contexts and methods 242
62 Security in home systems and multimedia networks 242 621 Service access methods 242 622 Virtual networks (VPN) 244
63 Bibliography 245
Chapter 7 Service Platforms 247
71 Service platform for a managed network 247 711 Services 247
Table of Contents ix
712 Servers 249 72 Internet kiosk on an unmanaged network 252
721 General points 252 722 Security 253 723 Private life 254 724 Development languages of applications 254
73 Sharing resources 255
Glossary 259
Index 271
Chapter 1
Services Offered by Home Area Networks
11 Why home networking
The current evolution of society in developed countries has led to very high speed access to information networks being seen as essential in order to avoid marginalization
Following the lead of North America households are no longer happy with a single television program and wish to receive two to five programs ndash and sometimes more ndash on various different television sets ranging from high definition flat screens to VGA or QVGA screens When we take into account the increasing demands for digital television ndash and also those for Internet surfing VoIP and new services to be in used in the home ndash we have to consider home area networks carrying more than 50 Mbps (for effective capacity not including error correction mechanisms) Most forecasts converge on a value of 100 Mbps This has an impact on the Internet access technology to be deployed in the future
At the same time an awareness of environmental problems notably those linked to travel has led us to consider carrying out tasks at home which would previously have been done in the
2 Home Area Networks and IPTV
office including in design offices with CAD (computer-aided design) directly linked (or not) to automatons and robots on the production floor High speed Internet allows the possibility of real collaborative work between people across the country and the world As a result a substantial saving in hydrocarbon consumption is achieved as well as an improvement in the quality of life Most of all this collaborative effort centered around CAD if applied to all technological sectors could lead to revival and growth in the industrial economy
In addition an ageing population is leading to the development of systems for monitoring patients at home under medical observation or even for home hospitalization
Finally research into energy efficiency requires the use of systems optimizing consumption by means of automatons and associated sensors for ad hoc information processing
All these needs require the household distribution of a digital bit rate estimated to be at least 100 Mbps and maybe even 1 Gbps in the medium term if Japan and South Korearsquos plans are to be believed This distribution can either be ensured through a single distribution network or by more than one Given that each network has its own distinctiveness and drawbacks it is far better to avoid separate rollouts
12 Service convergence
Today the industrial breakthrough of standard IP components has pushed service providers into adopting these standards no matter what technology was previously used and even if changing leads only to minor optimization This technological convergence has also been brought about by the ever-improving performance of electronic chips leading to the widespread availability of ldquoall digitalrdquo systems
The performance of these components is distinguished by a significantly increasing processing power as well as significantly decreasing power consumption when measured for the same
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 3
service Low-cost integrated circuits with dimensions of 65 nanometers were the basis of most electronic devices at the start of 2009 since 2010 45 nanometer circuits have been mass produced and have brought with them an even better performance Some 32 nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits are now ready for manufacture despite investment costs
NOTE ndash CMOS technology is a technology for constructing integrated circuits It is used in microprocessors microcontrollers static RAM and other digital logic circuits for many types of communication including digital TV devices
This processing power will allow the use of algorithms some of them known for more than two decades which require such additional power Two fields are revolutionized in this way
ndash mobile communications which can from now on adopt revolutionary signal processing techniques such as turbo codes MIMO or numerous variations of OFDM These technologies are used in the new mobile radiocommunication systems in LTE as well as in WiMAX (and even by the latest generation of WiFi 80211n)
ndash data compression algorithms for images and sound After MPEG2 already revolutionary which dominated the audiovisual sector in around 2000 comes MPEG4-AVC-Part 10-High Profile (simply and incorrectly called MPEG4) for moving images New very high performance audio coders AAC or DD+ are also available The H264 (another name for the MPEG4 coding) allows the possibility of high definition video transmission with a digital bit rate of approximately 7 Mbps (between 5 and 10 Mbps) The bit rate required depends on the choice of number of pixels (the standard allows a large range of image definitions) and in addition the quality of the coding This coding has not fully developed and should improve in the coming two to three years Improvement in performance is made with a constant decoder in the tradition of MPEG the decoder is first and foremost technically standardized in order to allow very large mass production The end result is that an MPEG4 decoder can process
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Services Offered by Home Area Networks 1
11 Why home networking 1 12 Service convergence 2
121 Triple play 4 122 Quadruple play 6 123 Services linked to the person 7 124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing 8
13 IP or non-IP home area networks 8 131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks 10
14 Bibliography 11 15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates 11
151 Progressive deployment 13 152 Client ubiquity 16
Chapter 2 Receiving Television via Internet IPTV 19
21 Introduction 20 22 Digital TV formats (DVB and MPEG standards) 20
221 MPEG 20 222 DVB 21
23 Digital TV transmission through IP 29 231 History and market 29 232 The evolution of consumer trends 32
24 IPTV elements of the network 33 241 General points 33 242 Data transmission in an IPTV network 37 243 Quality of service 40
vi Home Area Networks and IPTV
244 IP channel-switching 48 245 IPTV in a local loop 49
25 Set-top box (STB) hardware and software design 50 251 IPTV middleware 51 252 Content protection 52 253 Interactivity 52
26 Bibliography 53 27 Appendix notes on digital television 53
271 Video 53 272 Screens size and resolution 55 273 Production 57
Chapter 3 Household Internet Connections 61
31 Network cables 61 311 Introduction 61 312 Communication media 63 313 The DOCSISEURODOCSIS standard 69 314 Modems and DOCSISEURODOCSIS CMTS 72 315 RF DOCSISEURODOCSIS signals 73 316 Sizing optical nodes for DOCSIS services 77 317 Digital Television 78 318 Analog television 79 319 The last mile from local loop VHF to fiber 80 3110 Transport and distribution of signals from headend to local loops 84
32 Internet access by means of outdoor PLC 91 321 Structure of an electrical supply network 92 322 Use of the electric pair by PLC 93 323 Frequencies used by PLC 95 324 PLC standards 96 325 Administration of an outdoor PLC 97
33 Fiber optics to the home (FTTH) 98 331 Introduction 98 332 Fiber optic technologies 99 333 Fiber optic cables 104 334 Lasers LEDs and optical receivers 106 335 Fiber optic subscriber connections FTTx 107 336 Fiber to the Home (FTTH) 119
34 xDSL networks 120 341 Introduction 120 342 General points 121 343 ADSL technology 124
Table of Contents vii
344 Data organization ADSL frame and superframe 128 345 Elements of ADSL access 129 346 Protocol architecture for ADSL 133 347 Gigabit Ethernet transmission 139 348 Unbundling 140 349 Services over an ADSL network 141
35 High bit rate radio satellite WiMAX and LTE 144 351 Introduction 144 352 Worldwide Inter-operability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) 145 353 LTE (-SAE) 149 354 Internet by satellite 151
36 Bibliography 152
Chapter 4 Home Area Network Technologies 155
41 Copper pair cables 155 42 The home network in coaxial cable 157
421 Communication mediums 158 422 Transported signals DOCSISEURODOCSIS 159 423 Terminal section 159 424 FTTLA beyond 2012 160
43 Home networks using indoor power line communications 160 431 Standards and norms 163 432 Possibility of two different networks 164 433 Safeguarding the local network 164 434 Analysis and administration 164
44 LTE femtocells 165 441 Introduction 165 442 The LTE standard and femtocells 166
45 Plastic optical fibers 167 451 POF transmission 167 452 IEEE 1394 standard 171 453 Recognition of other mediums and external connections 174
46 WiFi home area networks 175 461 Introduction 175 462 General points 176 463 Connection to the Internet using radio waves 177 464 WiFi protocol layers 177 465 Successive WiFi standards 183 466 Transmission technologies 183 467 WiFi network deployment 189 468 Privacy 195
viii Home Area Networks and IPTV
469 80211n the future of WiFi 200 47 Home gateway 204 48 Bibliography 206
Chapter 5 Software Structure used in Home Area Networks 207
51 Characteristics of Home Area Networks 207 511 Heterogeneity 208 512 Dynamicity 209 513 Absence of an administrator 210
52 The digital leisure network UPNPDLNA 211 521 The UPNPDLNA organization and certification 211 522 Devices service and action models 213 523 Classes of devices home mobile internetwork 217 524 Formats images audio video 222 525 Network and transport of media 223 526 Conclusion 226
53 Home systems networks 226 531 The needs of home systems networks 226 532 MAC and physical layers on an RF network IEEE 802154 228 533 Networking and datalinking over an RF network example of ZigBee 233 534 Networking and datalinking over an electric cabled network 235
Chapter 6 Software Structures in Use for Home Area Networks 237
61 Service gateways 237 611 The role of a service gateway 237 612 Service administration OSGi bundles 239 613 Collection and redistribution of information contexts and methods 242
62 Security in home systems and multimedia networks 242 621 Service access methods 242 622 Virtual networks (VPN) 244
63 Bibliography 245
Chapter 7 Service Platforms 247
71 Service platform for a managed network 247 711 Services 247
Table of Contents ix
712 Servers 249 72 Internet kiosk on an unmanaged network 252
721 General points 252 722 Security 253 723 Private life 254 724 Development languages of applications 254
73 Sharing resources 255
Glossary 259
Index 271
Chapter 1
Services Offered by Home Area Networks
11 Why home networking
The current evolution of society in developed countries has led to very high speed access to information networks being seen as essential in order to avoid marginalization
Following the lead of North America households are no longer happy with a single television program and wish to receive two to five programs ndash and sometimes more ndash on various different television sets ranging from high definition flat screens to VGA or QVGA screens When we take into account the increasing demands for digital television ndash and also those for Internet surfing VoIP and new services to be in used in the home ndash we have to consider home area networks carrying more than 50 Mbps (for effective capacity not including error correction mechanisms) Most forecasts converge on a value of 100 Mbps This has an impact on the Internet access technology to be deployed in the future
At the same time an awareness of environmental problems notably those linked to travel has led us to consider carrying out tasks at home which would previously have been done in the
2 Home Area Networks and IPTV
office including in design offices with CAD (computer-aided design) directly linked (or not) to automatons and robots on the production floor High speed Internet allows the possibility of real collaborative work between people across the country and the world As a result a substantial saving in hydrocarbon consumption is achieved as well as an improvement in the quality of life Most of all this collaborative effort centered around CAD if applied to all technological sectors could lead to revival and growth in the industrial economy
In addition an ageing population is leading to the development of systems for monitoring patients at home under medical observation or even for home hospitalization
Finally research into energy efficiency requires the use of systems optimizing consumption by means of automatons and associated sensors for ad hoc information processing
All these needs require the household distribution of a digital bit rate estimated to be at least 100 Mbps and maybe even 1 Gbps in the medium term if Japan and South Korearsquos plans are to be believed This distribution can either be ensured through a single distribution network or by more than one Given that each network has its own distinctiveness and drawbacks it is far better to avoid separate rollouts
12 Service convergence
Today the industrial breakthrough of standard IP components has pushed service providers into adopting these standards no matter what technology was previously used and even if changing leads only to minor optimization This technological convergence has also been brought about by the ever-improving performance of electronic chips leading to the widespread availability of ldquoall digitalrdquo systems
The performance of these components is distinguished by a significantly increasing processing power as well as significantly decreasing power consumption when measured for the same
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 3
service Low-cost integrated circuits with dimensions of 65 nanometers were the basis of most electronic devices at the start of 2009 since 2010 45 nanometer circuits have been mass produced and have brought with them an even better performance Some 32 nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits are now ready for manufacture despite investment costs
NOTE ndash CMOS technology is a technology for constructing integrated circuits It is used in microprocessors microcontrollers static RAM and other digital logic circuits for many types of communication including digital TV devices
This processing power will allow the use of algorithms some of them known for more than two decades which require such additional power Two fields are revolutionized in this way
ndash mobile communications which can from now on adopt revolutionary signal processing techniques such as turbo codes MIMO or numerous variations of OFDM These technologies are used in the new mobile radiocommunication systems in LTE as well as in WiMAX (and even by the latest generation of WiFi 80211n)
ndash data compression algorithms for images and sound After MPEG2 already revolutionary which dominated the audiovisual sector in around 2000 comes MPEG4-AVC-Part 10-High Profile (simply and incorrectly called MPEG4) for moving images New very high performance audio coders AAC or DD+ are also available The H264 (another name for the MPEG4 coding) allows the possibility of high definition video transmission with a digital bit rate of approximately 7 Mbps (between 5 and 10 Mbps) The bit rate required depends on the choice of number of pixels (the standard allows a large range of image definitions) and in addition the quality of the coding This coding has not fully developed and should improve in the coming two to three years Improvement in performance is made with a constant decoder in the tradition of MPEG the decoder is first and foremost technically standardized in order to allow very large mass production The end result is that an MPEG4 decoder can process
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
vi Home Area Networks and IPTV
244 IP channel-switching 48 245 IPTV in a local loop 49
25 Set-top box (STB) hardware and software design 50 251 IPTV middleware 51 252 Content protection 52 253 Interactivity 52
26 Bibliography 53 27 Appendix notes on digital television 53
271 Video 53 272 Screens size and resolution 55 273 Production 57
Chapter 3 Household Internet Connections 61
31 Network cables 61 311 Introduction 61 312 Communication media 63 313 The DOCSISEURODOCSIS standard 69 314 Modems and DOCSISEURODOCSIS CMTS 72 315 RF DOCSISEURODOCSIS signals 73 316 Sizing optical nodes for DOCSIS services 77 317 Digital Television 78 318 Analog television 79 319 The last mile from local loop VHF to fiber 80 3110 Transport and distribution of signals from headend to local loops 84
32 Internet access by means of outdoor PLC 91 321 Structure of an electrical supply network 92 322 Use of the electric pair by PLC 93 323 Frequencies used by PLC 95 324 PLC standards 96 325 Administration of an outdoor PLC 97
33 Fiber optics to the home (FTTH) 98 331 Introduction 98 332 Fiber optic technologies 99 333 Fiber optic cables 104 334 Lasers LEDs and optical receivers 106 335 Fiber optic subscriber connections FTTx 107 336 Fiber to the Home (FTTH) 119
34 xDSL networks 120 341 Introduction 120 342 General points 121 343 ADSL technology 124
Table of Contents vii
344 Data organization ADSL frame and superframe 128 345 Elements of ADSL access 129 346 Protocol architecture for ADSL 133 347 Gigabit Ethernet transmission 139 348 Unbundling 140 349 Services over an ADSL network 141
35 High bit rate radio satellite WiMAX and LTE 144 351 Introduction 144 352 Worldwide Inter-operability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) 145 353 LTE (-SAE) 149 354 Internet by satellite 151
36 Bibliography 152
Chapter 4 Home Area Network Technologies 155
41 Copper pair cables 155 42 The home network in coaxial cable 157
421 Communication mediums 158 422 Transported signals DOCSISEURODOCSIS 159 423 Terminal section 159 424 FTTLA beyond 2012 160
43 Home networks using indoor power line communications 160 431 Standards and norms 163 432 Possibility of two different networks 164 433 Safeguarding the local network 164 434 Analysis and administration 164
44 LTE femtocells 165 441 Introduction 165 442 The LTE standard and femtocells 166
45 Plastic optical fibers 167 451 POF transmission 167 452 IEEE 1394 standard 171 453 Recognition of other mediums and external connections 174
46 WiFi home area networks 175 461 Introduction 175 462 General points 176 463 Connection to the Internet using radio waves 177 464 WiFi protocol layers 177 465 Successive WiFi standards 183 466 Transmission technologies 183 467 WiFi network deployment 189 468 Privacy 195
viii Home Area Networks and IPTV
469 80211n the future of WiFi 200 47 Home gateway 204 48 Bibliography 206
Chapter 5 Software Structure used in Home Area Networks 207
51 Characteristics of Home Area Networks 207 511 Heterogeneity 208 512 Dynamicity 209 513 Absence of an administrator 210
52 The digital leisure network UPNPDLNA 211 521 The UPNPDLNA organization and certification 211 522 Devices service and action models 213 523 Classes of devices home mobile internetwork 217 524 Formats images audio video 222 525 Network and transport of media 223 526 Conclusion 226
53 Home systems networks 226 531 The needs of home systems networks 226 532 MAC and physical layers on an RF network IEEE 802154 228 533 Networking and datalinking over an RF network example of ZigBee 233 534 Networking and datalinking over an electric cabled network 235
Chapter 6 Software Structures in Use for Home Area Networks 237
61 Service gateways 237 611 The role of a service gateway 237 612 Service administration OSGi bundles 239 613 Collection and redistribution of information contexts and methods 242
62 Security in home systems and multimedia networks 242 621 Service access methods 242 622 Virtual networks (VPN) 244
63 Bibliography 245
Chapter 7 Service Platforms 247
71 Service platform for a managed network 247 711 Services 247
Table of Contents ix
712 Servers 249 72 Internet kiosk on an unmanaged network 252
721 General points 252 722 Security 253 723 Private life 254 724 Development languages of applications 254
73 Sharing resources 255
Glossary 259
Index 271
Chapter 1
Services Offered by Home Area Networks
11 Why home networking
The current evolution of society in developed countries has led to very high speed access to information networks being seen as essential in order to avoid marginalization
Following the lead of North America households are no longer happy with a single television program and wish to receive two to five programs ndash and sometimes more ndash on various different television sets ranging from high definition flat screens to VGA or QVGA screens When we take into account the increasing demands for digital television ndash and also those for Internet surfing VoIP and new services to be in used in the home ndash we have to consider home area networks carrying more than 50 Mbps (for effective capacity not including error correction mechanisms) Most forecasts converge on a value of 100 Mbps This has an impact on the Internet access technology to be deployed in the future
At the same time an awareness of environmental problems notably those linked to travel has led us to consider carrying out tasks at home which would previously have been done in the
2 Home Area Networks and IPTV
office including in design offices with CAD (computer-aided design) directly linked (or not) to automatons and robots on the production floor High speed Internet allows the possibility of real collaborative work between people across the country and the world As a result a substantial saving in hydrocarbon consumption is achieved as well as an improvement in the quality of life Most of all this collaborative effort centered around CAD if applied to all technological sectors could lead to revival and growth in the industrial economy
In addition an ageing population is leading to the development of systems for monitoring patients at home under medical observation or even for home hospitalization
Finally research into energy efficiency requires the use of systems optimizing consumption by means of automatons and associated sensors for ad hoc information processing
All these needs require the household distribution of a digital bit rate estimated to be at least 100 Mbps and maybe even 1 Gbps in the medium term if Japan and South Korearsquos plans are to be believed This distribution can either be ensured through a single distribution network or by more than one Given that each network has its own distinctiveness and drawbacks it is far better to avoid separate rollouts
12 Service convergence
Today the industrial breakthrough of standard IP components has pushed service providers into adopting these standards no matter what technology was previously used and even if changing leads only to minor optimization This technological convergence has also been brought about by the ever-improving performance of electronic chips leading to the widespread availability of ldquoall digitalrdquo systems
The performance of these components is distinguished by a significantly increasing processing power as well as significantly decreasing power consumption when measured for the same
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 3
service Low-cost integrated circuits with dimensions of 65 nanometers were the basis of most electronic devices at the start of 2009 since 2010 45 nanometer circuits have been mass produced and have brought with them an even better performance Some 32 nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits are now ready for manufacture despite investment costs
NOTE ndash CMOS technology is a technology for constructing integrated circuits It is used in microprocessors microcontrollers static RAM and other digital logic circuits for many types of communication including digital TV devices
This processing power will allow the use of algorithms some of them known for more than two decades which require such additional power Two fields are revolutionized in this way
ndash mobile communications which can from now on adopt revolutionary signal processing techniques such as turbo codes MIMO or numerous variations of OFDM These technologies are used in the new mobile radiocommunication systems in LTE as well as in WiMAX (and even by the latest generation of WiFi 80211n)
ndash data compression algorithms for images and sound After MPEG2 already revolutionary which dominated the audiovisual sector in around 2000 comes MPEG4-AVC-Part 10-High Profile (simply and incorrectly called MPEG4) for moving images New very high performance audio coders AAC or DD+ are also available The H264 (another name for the MPEG4 coding) allows the possibility of high definition video transmission with a digital bit rate of approximately 7 Mbps (between 5 and 10 Mbps) The bit rate required depends on the choice of number of pixels (the standard allows a large range of image definitions) and in addition the quality of the coding This coding has not fully developed and should improve in the coming two to three years Improvement in performance is made with a constant decoder in the tradition of MPEG the decoder is first and foremost technically standardized in order to allow very large mass production The end result is that an MPEG4 decoder can process
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Table of Contents vii
344 Data organization ADSL frame and superframe 128 345 Elements of ADSL access 129 346 Protocol architecture for ADSL 133 347 Gigabit Ethernet transmission 139 348 Unbundling 140 349 Services over an ADSL network 141
35 High bit rate radio satellite WiMAX and LTE 144 351 Introduction 144 352 Worldwide Inter-operability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) 145 353 LTE (-SAE) 149 354 Internet by satellite 151
36 Bibliography 152
Chapter 4 Home Area Network Technologies 155
41 Copper pair cables 155 42 The home network in coaxial cable 157
421 Communication mediums 158 422 Transported signals DOCSISEURODOCSIS 159 423 Terminal section 159 424 FTTLA beyond 2012 160
43 Home networks using indoor power line communications 160 431 Standards and norms 163 432 Possibility of two different networks 164 433 Safeguarding the local network 164 434 Analysis and administration 164
44 LTE femtocells 165 441 Introduction 165 442 The LTE standard and femtocells 166
45 Plastic optical fibers 167 451 POF transmission 167 452 IEEE 1394 standard 171 453 Recognition of other mediums and external connections 174
46 WiFi home area networks 175 461 Introduction 175 462 General points 176 463 Connection to the Internet using radio waves 177 464 WiFi protocol layers 177 465 Successive WiFi standards 183 466 Transmission technologies 183 467 WiFi network deployment 189 468 Privacy 195
viii Home Area Networks and IPTV
469 80211n the future of WiFi 200 47 Home gateway 204 48 Bibliography 206
Chapter 5 Software Structure used in Home Area Networks 207
51 Characteristics of Home Area Networks 207 511 Heterogeneity 208 512 Dynamicity 209 513 Absence of an administrator 210
52 The digital leisure network UPNPDLNA 211 521 The UPNPDLNA organization and certification 211 522 Devices service and action models 213 523 Classes of devices home mobile internetwork 217 524 Formats images audio video 222 525 Network and transport of media 223 526 Conclusion 226
53 Home systems networks 226 531 The needs of home systems networks 226 532 MAC and physical layers on an RF network IEEE 802154 228 533 Networking and datalinking over an RF network example of ZigBee 233 534 Networking and datalinking over an electric cabled network 235
Chapter 6 Software Structures in Use for Home Area Networks 237
61 Service gateways 237 611 The role of a service gateway 237 612 Service administration OSGi bundles 239 613 Collection and redistribution of information contexts and methods 242
62 Security in home systems and multimedia networks 242 621 Service access methods 242 622 Virtual networks (VPN) 244
63 Bibliography 245
Chapter 7 Service Platforms 247
71 Service platform for a managed network 247 711 Services 247
Table of Contents ix
712 Servers 249 72 Internet kiosk on an unmanaged network 252
721 General points 252 722 Security 253 723 Private life 254 724 Development languages of applications 254
73 Sharing resources 255
Glossary 259
Index 271
Chapter 1
Services Offered by Home Area Networks
11 Why home networking
The current evolution of society in developed countries has led to very high speed access to information networks being seen as essential in order to avoid marginalization
Following the lead of North America households are no longer happy with a single television program and wish to receive two to five programs ndash and sometimes more ndash on various different television sets ranging from high definition flat screens to VGA or QVGA screens When we take into account the increasing demands for digital television ndash and also those for Internet surfing VoIP and new services to be in used in the home ndash we have to consider home area networks carrying more than 50 Mbps (for effective capacity not including error correction mechanisms) Most forecasts converge on a value of 100 Mbps This has an impact on the Internet access technology to be deployed in the future
At the same time an awareness of environmental problems notably those linked to travel has led us to consider carrying out tasks at home which would previously have been done in the
2 Home Area Networks and IPTV
office including in design offices with CAD (computer-aided design) directly linked (or not) to automatons and robots on the production floor High speed Internet allows the possibility of real collaborative work between people across the country and the world As a result a substantial saving in hydrocarbon consumption is achieved as well as an improvement in the quality of life Most of all this collaborative effort centered around CAD if applied to all technological sectors could lead to revival and growth in the industrial economy
In addition an ageing population is leading to the development of systems for monitoring patients at home under medical observation or even for home hospitalization
Finally research into energy efficiency requires the use of systems optimizing consumption by means of automatons and associated sensors for ad hoc information processing
All these needs require the household distribution of a digital bit rate estimated to be at least 100 Mbps and maybe even 1 Gbps in the medium term if Japan and South Korearsquos plans are to be believed This distribution can either be ensured through a single distribution network or by more than one Given that each network has its own distinctiveness and drawbacks it is far better to avoid separate rollouts
12 Service convergence
Today the industrial breakthrough of standard IP components has pushed service providers into adopting these standards no matter what technology was previously used and even if changing leads only to minor optimization This technological convergence has also been brought about by the ever-improving performance of electronic chips leading to the widespread availability of ldquoall digitalrdquo systems
The performance of these components is distinguished by a significantly increasing processing power as well as significantly decreasing power consumption when measured for the same
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 3
service Low-cost integrated circuits with dimensions of 65 nanometers were the basis of most electronic devices at the start of 2009 since 2010 45 nanometer circuits have been mass produced and have brought with them an even better performance Some 32 nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits are now ready for manufacture despite investment costs
NOTE ndash CMOS technology is a technology for constructing integrated circuits It is used in microprocessors microcontrollers static RAM and other digital logic circuits for many types of communication including digital TV devices
This processing power will allow the use of algorithms some of them known for more than two decades which require such additional power Two fields are revolutionized in this way
ndash mobile communications which can from now on adopt revolutionary signal processing techniques such as turbo codes MIMO or numerous variations of OFDM These technologies are used in the new mobile radiocommunication systems in LTE as well as in WiMAX (and even by the latest generation of WiFi 80211n)
ndash data compression algorithms for images and sound After MPEG2 already revolutionary which dominated the audiovisual sector in around 2000 comes MPEG4-AVC-Part 10-High Profile (simply and incorrectly called MPEG4) for moving images New very high performance audio coders AAC or DD+ are also available The H264 (another name for the MPEG4 coding) allows the possibility of high definition video transmission with a digital bit rate of approximately 7 Mbps (between 5 and 10 Mbps) The bit rate required depends on the choice of number of pixels (the standard allows a large range of image definitions) and in addition the quality of the coding This coding has not fully developed and should improve in the coming two to three years Improvement in performance is made with a constant decoder in the tradition of MPEG the decoder is first and foremost technically standardized in order to allow very large mass production The end result is that an MPEG4 decoder can process
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
viii Home Area Networks and IPTV
469 80211n the future of WiFi 200 47 Home gateway 204 48 Bibliography 206
Chapter 5 Software Structure used in Home Area Networks 207
51 Characteristics of Home Area Networks 207 511 Heterogeneity 208 512 Dynamicity 209 513 Absence of an administrator 210
52 The digital leisure network UPNPDLNA 211 521 The UPNPDLNA organization and certification 211 522 Devices service and action models 213 523 Classes of devices home mobile internetwork 217 524 Formats images audio video 222 525 Network and transport of media 223 526 Conclusion 226
53 Home systems networks 226 531 The needs of home systems networks 226 532 MAC and physical layers on an RF network IEEE 802154 228 533 Networking and datalinking over an RF network example of ZigBee 233 534 Networking and datalinking over an electric cabled network 235
Chapter 6 Software Structures in Use for Home Area Networks 237
61 Service gateways 237 611 The role of a service gateway 237 612 Service administration OSGi bundles 239 613 Collection and redistribution of information contexts and methods 242
62 Security in home systems and multimedia networks 242 621 Service access methods 242 622 Virtual networks (VPN) 244
63 Bibliography 245
Chapter 7 Service Platforms 247
71 Service platform for a managed network 247 711 Services 247
Table of Contents ix
712 Servers 249 72 Internet kiosk on an unmanaged network 252
721 General points 252 722 Security 253 723 Private life 254 724 Development languages of applications 254
73 Sharing resources 255
Glossary 259
Index 271
Chapter 1
Services Offered by Home Area Networks
11 Why home networking
The current evolution of society in developed countries has led to very high speed access to information networks being seen as essential in order to avoid marginalization
Following the lead of North America households are no longer happy with a single television program and wish to receive two to five programs ndash and sometimes more ndash on various different television sets ranging from high definition flat screens to VGA or QVGA screens When we take into account the increasing demands for digital television ndash and also those for Internet surfing VoIP and new services to be in used in the home ndash we have to consider home area networks carrying more than 50 Mbps (for effective capacity not including error correction mechanisms) Most forecasts converge on a value of 100 Mbps This has an impact on the Internet access technology to be deployed in the future
At the same time an awareness of environmental problems notably those linked to travel has led us to consider carrying out tasks at home which would previously have been done in the
2 Home Area Networks and IPTV
office including in design offices with CAD (computer-aided design) directly linked (or not) to automatons and robots on the production floor High speed Internet allows the possibility of real collaborative work between people across the country and the world As a result a substantial saving in hydrocarbon consumption is achieved as well as an improvement in the quality of life Most of all this collaborative effort centered around CAD if applied to all technological sectors could lead to revival and growth in the industrial economy
In addition an ageing population is leading to the development of systems for monitoring patients at home under medical observation or even for home hospitalization
Finally research into energy efficiency requires the use of systems optimizing consumption by means of automatons and associated sensors for ad hoc information processing
All these needs require the household distribution of a digital bit rate estimated to be at least 100 Mbps and maybe even 1 Gbps in the medium term if Japan and South Korearsquos plans are to be believed This distribution can either be ensured through a single distribution network or by more than one Given that each network has its own distinctiveness and drawbacks it is far better to avoid separate rollouts
12 Service convergence
Today the industrial breakthrough of standard IP components has pushed service providers into adopting these standards no matter what technology was previously used and even if changing leads only to minor optimization This technological convergence has also been brought about by the ever-improving performance of electronic chips leading to the widespread availability of ldquoall digitalrdquo systems
The performance of these components is distinguished by a significantly increasing processing power as well as significantly decreasing power consumption when measured for the same
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 3
service Low-cost integrated circuits with dimensions of 65 nanometers were the basis of most electronic devices at the start of 2009 since 2010 45 nanometer circuits have been mass produced and have brought with them an even better performance Some 32 nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits are now ready for manufacture despite investment costs
NOTE ndash CMOS technology is a technology for constructing integrated circuits It is used in microprocessors microcontrollers static RAM and other digital logic circuits for many types of communication including digital TV devices
This processing power will allow the use of algorithms some of them known for more than two decades which require such additional power Two fields are revolutionized in this way
ndash mobile communications which can from now on adopt revolutionary signal processing techniques such as turbo codes MIMO or numerous variations of OFDM These technologies are used in the new mobile radiocommunication systems in LTE as well as in WiMAX (and even by the latest generation of WiFi 80211n)
ndash data compression algorithms for images and sound After MPEG2 already revolutionary which dominated the audiovisual sector in around 2000 comes MPEG4-AVC-Part 10-High Profile (simply and incorrectly called MPEG4) for moving images New very high performance audio coders AAC or DD+ are also available The H264 (another name for the MPEG4 coding) allows the possibility of high definition video transmission with a digital bit rate of approximately 7 Mbps (between 5 and 10 Mbps) The bit rate required depends on the choice of number of pixels (the standard allows a large range of image definitions) and in addition the quality of the coding This coding has not fully developed and should improve in the coming two to three years Improvement in performance is made with a constant decoder in the tradition of MPEG the decoder is first and foremost technically standardized in order to allow very large mass production The end result is that an MPEG4 decoder can process
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Table of Contents ix
712 Servers 249 72 Internet kiosk on an unmanaged network 252
721 General points 252 722 Security 253 723 Private life 254 724 Development languages of applications 254
73 Sharing resources 255
Glossary 259
Index 271
Chapter 1
Services Offered by Home Area Networks
11 Why home networking
The current evolution of society in developed countries has led to very high speed access to information networks being seen as essential in order to avoid marginalization
Following the lead of North America households are no longer happy with a single television program and wish to receive two to five programs ndash and sometimes more ndash on various different television sets ranging from high definition flat screens to VGA or QVGA screens When we take into account the increasing demands for digital television ndash and also those for Internet surfing VoIP and new services to be in used in the home ndash we have to consider home area networks carrying more than 50 Mbps (for effective capacity not including error correction mechanisms) Most forecasts converge on a value of 100 Mbps This has an impact on the Internet access technology to be deployed in the future
At the same time an awareness of environmental problems notably those linked to travel has led us to consider carrying out tasks at home which would previously have been done in the
2 Home Area Networks and IPTV
office including in design offices with CAD (computer-aided design) directly linked (or not) to automatons and robots on the production floor High speed Internet allows the possibility of real collaborative work between people across the country and the world As a result a substantial saving in hydrocarbon consumption is achieved as well as an improvement in the quality of life Most of all this collaborative effort centered around CAD if applied to all technological sectors could lead to revival and growth in the industrial economy
In addition an ageing population is leading to the development of systems for monitoring patients at home under medical observation or even for home hospitalization
Finally research into energy efficiency requires the use of systems optimizing consumption by means of automatons and associated sensors for ad hoc information processing
All these needs require the household distribution of a digital bit rate estimated to be at least 100 Mbps and maybe even 1 Gbps in the medium term if Japan and South Korearsquos plans are to be believed This distribution can either be ensured through a single distribution network or by more than one Given that each network has its own distinctiveness and drawbacks it is far better to avoid separate rollouts
12 Service convergence
Today the industrial breakthrough of standard IP components has pushed service providers into adopting these standards no matter what technology was previously used and even if changing leads only to minor optimization This technological convergence has also been brought about by the ever-improving performance of electronic chips leading to the widespread availability of ldquoall digitalrdquo systems
The performance of these components is distinguished by a significantly increasing processing power as well as significantly decreasing power consumption when measured for the same
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 3
service Low-cost integrated circuits with dimensions of 65 nanometers were the basis of most electronic devices at the start of 2009 since 2010 45 nanometer circuits have been mass produced and have brought with them an even better performance Some 32 nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits are now ready for manufacture despite investment costs
NOTE ndash CMOS technology is a technology for constructing integrated circuits It is used in microprocessors microcontrollers static RAM and other digital logic circuits for many types of communication including digital TV devices
This processing power will allow the use of algorithms some of them known for more than two decades which require such additional power Two fields are revolutionized in this way
ndash mobile communications which can from now on adopt revolutionary signal processing techniques such as turbo codes MIMO or numerous variations of OFDM These technologies are used in the new mobile radiocommunication systems in LTE as well as in WiMAX (and even by the latest generation of WiFi 80211n)
ndash data compression algorithms for images and sound After MPEG2 already revolutionary which dominated the audiovisual sector in around 2000 comes MPEG4-AVC-Part 10-High Profile (simply and incorrectly called MPEG4) for moving images New very high performance audio coders AAC or DD+ are also available The H264 (another name for the MPEG4 coding) allows the possibility of high definition video transmission with a digital bit rate of approximately 7 Mbps (between 5 and 10 Mbps) The bit rate required depends on the choice of number of pixels (the standard allows a large range of image definitions) and in addition the quality of the coding This coding has not fully developed and should improve in the coming two to three years Improvement in performance is made with a constant decoder in the tradition of MPEG the decoder is first and foremost technically standardized in order to allow very large mass production The end result is that an MPEG4 decoder can process
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Chapter 1
Services Offered by Home Area Networks
11 Why home networking
The current evolution of society in developed countries has led to very high speed access to information networks being seen as essential in order to avoid marginalization
Following the lead of North America households are no longer happy with a single television program and wish to receive two to five programs ndash and sometimes more ndash on various different television sets ranging from high definition flat screens to VGA or QVGA screens When we take into account the increasing demands for digital television ndash and also those for Internet surfing VoIP and new services to be in used in the home ndash we have to consider home area networks carrying more than 50 Mbps (for effective capacity not including error correction mechanisms) Most forecasts converge on a value of 100 Mbps This has an impact on the Internet access technology to be deployed in the future
At the same time an awareness of environmental problems notably those linked to travel has led us to consider carrying out tasks at home which would previously have been done in the
2 Home Area Networks and IPTV
office including in design offices with CAD (computer-aided design) directly linked (or not) to automatons and robots on the production floor High speed Internet allows the possibility of real collaborative work between people across the country and the world As a result a substantial saving in hydrocarbon consumption is achieved as well as an improvement in the quality of life Most of all this collaborative effort centered around CAD if applied to all technological sectors could lead to revival and growth in the industrial economy
In addition an ageing population is leading to the development of systems for monitoring patients at home under medical observation or even for home hospitalization
Finally research into energy efficiency requires the use of systems optimizing consumption by means of automatons and associated sensors for ad hoc information processing
All these needs require the household distribution of a digital bit rate estimated to be at least 100 Mbps and maybe even 1 Gbps in the medium term if Japan and South Korearsquos plans are to be believed This distribution can either be ensured through a single distribution network or by more than one Given that each network has its own distinctiveness and drawbacks it is far better to avoid separate rollouts
12 Service convergence
Today the industrial breakthrough of standard IP components has pushed service providers into adopting these standards no matter what technology was previously used and even if changing leads only to minor optimization This technological convergence has also been brought about by the ever-improving performance of electronic chips leading to the widespread availability of ldquoall digitalrdquo systems
The performance of these components is distinguished by a significantly increasing processing power as well as significantly decreasing power consumption when measured for the same
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 3
service Low-cost integrated circuits with dimensions of 65 nanometers were the basis of most electronic devices at the start of 2009 since 2010 45 nanometer circuits have been mass produced and have brought with them an even better performance Some 32 nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits are now ready for manufacture despite investment costs
NOTE ndash CMOS technology is a technology for constructing integrated circuits It is used in microprocessors microcontrollers static RAM and other digital logic circuits for many types of communication including digital TV devices
This processing power will allow the use of algorithms some of them known for more than two decades which require such additional power Two fields are revolutionized in this way
ndash mobile communications which can from now on adopt revolutionary signal processing techniques such as turbo codes MIMO or numerous variations of OFDM These technologies are used in the new mobile radiocommunication systems in LTE as well as in WiMAX (and even by the latest generation of WiFi 80211n)
ndash data compression algorithms for images and sound After MPEG2 already revolutionary which dominated the audiovisual sector in around 2000 comes MPEG4-AVC-Part 10-High Profile (simply and incorrectly called MPEG4) for moving images New very high performance audio coders AAC or DD+ are also available The H264 (another name for the MPEG4 coding) allows the possibility of high definition video transmission with a digital bit rate of approximately 7 Mbps (between 5 and 10 Mbps) The bit rate required depends on the choice of number of pixels (the standard allows a large range of image definitions) and in addition the quality of the coding This coding has not fully developed and should improve in the coming two to three years Improvement in performance is made with a constant decoder in the tradition of MPEG the decoder is first and foremost technically standardized in order to allow very large mass production The end result is that an MPEG4 decoder can process
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
2 Home Area Networks and IPTV
office including in design offices with CAD (computer-aided design) directly linked (or not) to automatons and robots on the production floor High speed Internet allows the possibility of real collaborative work between people across the country and the world As a result a substantial saving in hydrocarbon consumption is achieved as well as an improvement in the quality of life Most of all this collaborative effort centered around CAD if applied to all technological sectors could lead to revival and growth in the industrial economy
In addition an ageing population is leading to the development of systems for monitoring patients at home under medical observation or even for home hospitalization
Finally research into energy efficiency requires the use of systems optimizing consumption by means of automatons and associated sensors for ad hoc information processing
All these needs require the household distribution of a digital bit rate estimated to be at least 100 Mbps and maybe even 1 Gbps in the medium term if Japan and South Korearsquos plans are to be believed This distribution can either be ensured through a single distribution network or by more than one Given that each network has its own distinctiveness and drawbacks it is far better to avoid separate rollouts
12 Service convergence
Today the industrial breakthrough of standard IP components has pushed service providers into adopting these standards no matter what technology was previously used and even if changing leads only to minor optimization This technological convergence has also been brought about by the ever-improving performance of electronic chips leading to the widespread availability of ldquoall digitalrdquo systems
The performance of these components is distinguished by a significantly increasing processing power as well as significantly decreasing power consumption when measured for the same
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 3
service Low-cost integrated circuits with dimensions of 65 nanometers were the basis of most electronic devices at the start of 2009 since 2010 45 nanometer circuits have been mass produced and have brought with them an even better performance Some 32 nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits are now ready for manufacture despite investment costs
NOTE ndash CMOS technology is a technology for constructing integrated circuits It is used in microprocessors microcontrollers static RAM and other digital logic circuits for many types of communication including digital TV devices
This processing power will allow the use of algorithms some of them known for more than two decades which require such additional power Two fields are revolutionized in this way
ndash mobile communications which can from now on adopt revolutionary signal processing techniques such as turbo codes MIMO or numerous variations of OFDM These technologies are used in the new mobile radiocommunication systems in LTE as well as in WiMAX (and even by the latest generation of WiFi 80211n)
ndash data compression algorithms for images and sound After MPEG2 already revolutionary which dominated the audiovisual sector in around 2000 comes MPEG4-AVC-Part 10-High Profile (simply and incorrectly called MPEG4) for moving images New very high performance audio coders AAC or DD+ are also available The H264 (another name for the MPEG4 coding) allows the possibility of high definition video transmission with a digital bit rate of approximately 7 Mbps (between 5 and 10 Mbps) The bit rate required depends on the choice of number of pixels (the standard allows a large range of image definitions) and in addition the quality of the coding This coding has not fully developed and should improve in the coming two to three years Improvement in performance is made with a constant decoder in the tradition of MPEG the decoder is first and foremost technically standardized in order to allow very large mass production The end result is that an MPEG4 decoder can process
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 3
service Low-cost integrated circuits with dimensions of 65 nanometers were the basis of most electronic devices at the start of 2009 since 2010 45 nanometer circuits have been mass produced and have brought with them an even better performance Some 32 nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits are now ready for manufacture despite investment costs
NOTE ndash CMOS technology is a technology for constructing integrated circuits It is used in microprocessors microcontrollers static RAM and other digital logic circuits for many types of communication including digital TV devices
This processing power will allow the use of algorithms some of them known for more than two decades which require such additional power Two fields are revolutionized in this way
ndash mobile communications which can from now on adopt revolutionary signal processing techniques such as turbo codes MIMO or numerous variations of OFDM These technologies are used in the new mobile radiocommunication systems in LTE as well as in WiMAX (and even by the latest generation of WiFi 80211n)
ndash data compression algorithms for images and sound After MPEG2 already revolutionary which dominated the audiovisual sector in around 2000 comes MPEG4-AVC-Part 10-High Profile (simply and incorrectly called MPEG4) for moving images New very high performance audio coders AAC or DD+ are also available The H264 (another name for the MPEG4 coding) allows the possibility of high definition video transmission with a digital bit rate of approximately 7 Mbps (between 5 and 10 Mbps) The bit rate required depends on the choice of number of pixels (the standard allows a large range of image definitions) and in addition the quality of the coding This coding has not fully developed and should improve in the coming two to three years Improvement in performance is made with a constant decoder in the tradition of MPEG the decoder is first and foremost technically standardized in order to allow very large mass production The end result is that an MPEG4 decoder can process
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
4 Home Area Networks and IPTV
all manner of definitions from European HDTV (high definition) ndash with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Europe) or 1280 x 720 pixels (USA) ndash to QVGA or QCIF as well as SDTV (standard definition) ndash with a definition of 720 x 576 pixels (Europe) or 720 x 480 pixels (USA) All kinds of digital television MPEG streams can use both progressive (P) and interlaced (I) displays The decoder also processes MPEG2 streams
121 Triple play
Triple play is the term used by companies that offer television telephone and high speed (broadband) Internet access in one single bundled commercial offer (for example charging euro30 per month for all three services)
The use of MPEG4 for television leads to data streaming of from 15 Mbps to around 25 Mbps for SDTV programs which can go from 5 to 10 Mbps for HDTV programs It also allows the transmission of VGA definition images provided with stereo sound in other words the performance of a traditional CRT monitor with around 500 kbps These digital bit rates are of course easily transmitted through classical methods of television viewing such as satellite (DVB-S2) cable TV (DVB-C) and terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T)
The novelty is that VDSL (Very-high-bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL modems use the telephone cabling linking businesses and houses to telephone exchanges which can now bring television to many households including HDTV This service is available to around 80 of French households in the form of the IPTV service VDSL provides faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires (up to 52 Mbits downstream and 16 Mbits upstream) and up to 85 Mbits downstream and upstream with coaxial cable utilizing the frequency band from 25 kHz to 12 MHz)
This requirement is easily fulfilled with fiber optic cables (FTTH fiber to the home) This allows the simultaneous
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 5
transmission of at least five high definition programs whilst retaining a very fast Internet speed as well as telephone facilities including videoconferencing (SKYPE for example)
In the same way cable TV finds in MPEG4 the technical ability to evolve towards triple play The available transmission capacity of the cable allows not only the transmission of hundreds of television programs in broadcast multicast or video on demand (VoD) access but also allows telephone and Internet access The latter services are obviously available individually through subscription There is a significant resulting modification to the architecture of the cabled networks which more and more resemble those of telephone operators offering Internet access
It is important to underline here that a triple play operatorrsquos delivery operation is not limited to providing subscribers with line equipment (telephone exchange cable or fiber optic) and a pair of modems ensuring high speed access Operators must size the network components depending on traffic flow and even adjust their architecture to ldquoall IPrdquo As the number of subscribers increases the more it is necessary to decentralize investment into active components such as DSLAM and servers In effect users are sensitive to the service quality parameters offered relating to
ndash connection waiting time whether matched or not with priority subscriptions
ndash average and peak bit rates and especially their consequence on television services or file transfers
ndash latency and jitter which are not acceptable for either television or for voice calls
In the light of this operators have to duplicate and allocate network components to maintain an acceptable quality of service to their customers who are ever more demanding The components concerned include
ndash Internet access servers
ndash VoD servers
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
6 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash application servers and gateways to service providers
122 Quadruple play
The digital bit rate required by low definition television adapted for small screen viewing (approximately 10 cm diagonal or less) is around 384 kbps stereo sound included Current installations use a bit rate of 250 kbps for QVGA definition As a result mobile operators can offer on-demand video service on their 3G mobiles ndash and soon to be 4G ndash in addition to mobile telephony and Internet access via the mobile networks which have been available for decades With a ldquoUMArdquo-type service marketed notably by Orange under the name UNIK clients can use any one of the three services (telephone Internet access and television) on their mobiles and this time via an xDSL access
Quadruple play refers to commercial offers associating roaming television telephone and Internet access services This is about real mobility comprising movement ndash and not ldquonomadicrdquo use where the user receives services at a fixed position ndash in various locations An example of nomadic use is the connection to hot spots spread across the country by telecommunication operators and certain entities (towns train stations airports etc)
The mobile networks are allocated with the necessary resources to ensure sufficient data services GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications originally a French initiative called ldquoGroupe Special Mobilerdquo) along with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service a packet-oriented mobile data service implemented on the GSM cellular communication system) offers 50 kbps as standard which is enough to check e-mail but not enough for television even in QVGA It is interesting to note however that the BBC broadcasts clips over its digital radio network with a very low definition designed for very small sized receivers (25 cm diagonal)
In order to reach acceptable speeds for quadruple play services GSM has evolved with EDGE notably the latest generations using
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 7
32QAM modulation The digital speed increases to 250 kbps which is the value needed for radiobroadcasting Mobile TV
Beyond this the CDMA200-EVDO system consistently offers at least 384 kbps in operational areas and can therefore ensure QVGA or even VGA quality for certain types of programs
From 2008 and even more so during 2009 the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) systems has satisfied needs The useable ldquodownlinkrdquo speed of mobile devices widely reaches 500 kbps in acceptable traffic conditions with a realistic number of subscribers
First in commercial service in 2010 and currently being rolled out towards a 2014 horizon LTE will be deployed with a speed per user of at least 1 Mbps and with the potential to be much higher up to 100 Mbps in network areas allocated with optimal frequency bandwidths (2 x 20 MHz duplex) In that case LTE will become an eligible system for the distribution of high speed digital Internet which offers at least as much as ADSL ndash subject to suitable investments for a downlink (DL) speed of 10 Mbps which ensures an uplink (UL) speed of 5 Mbps (higher than ADSL)
As with triple play the marketing of quadruple play forcibly impacts the architecture of the networks by requiring reinforcement in transmission links as much in linking base stations as in the arteries structuring connection to the servers The same quality of service imperatives apply concerning application servers Internet access VoD or VoIP
123 Services linked to the person
An ageing population is leading to the development of medical home services allowing the strict monitoring of patients without having to travel to hospital A considerable saving is made with in particular a relief of hospital emergency services and a drastic decrease (or elimination) of costly medically equipped transportation
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
8 Home Area Networks and IPTV
These services go as far as the use of robots which help patients to move this is the case currently in Japan and it should appear in Europe in the near future
These services require data exchange with in principle absolute security The bit rate is not necessarily very high except again if it requires the use of surveillance cameras (to determine if a patient has fallen for example) however SDTV is enough The question of data transmission from the ldquohospital in the homerdquo such as electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms is again more about reliability than bit rate
124 Home services energy saving intelligent housing
In 2007 an environmental committee set up in France (Le Grenelle de lrsquoenvironnement) brought to light applications aimed at optimizing day-to-day household maintenance for example by controlling the opening and closing of blinds optimally adjusting heating devices turning lights onoff taking into account the possible contribution of solar panels etc
With a more long-term vision it seems clear that the Internet will be used to control household objects such as for example controlling refrigerator stocks managing laundry etc
13 IP or non-IP home area networks
Many American households have been equipped with home area networks As a result a competent technician base exists capable of correctly installing such networks and maintaining or repairing them In general an American household contains two networks
ndash a coaxial network for the television and multimedia applications
ndash a network using symmetrical twisted pairs for other applications
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 9
This approach was perfectly justified before the general introduction of digital television which is now complete for everyone in the United States It will be interesting to see if the adoption of MPEG2 or MPEG4 leads to the simplifying of internal home cabling
A study of the global market shows an abundance of technologies As a result each of these technologies is struggling to develop across a mass market Nevertheless it is possible to split the technologies which are able to provide support for home area networks into two families
ndash cable technologies including coaxial cables telephone-type cables or ldquocat 5rdquo and ldquocat 6rdquo cables and electrical supply cabling by powerline communications (PLC) and fiber optics
ndash radio technologies of which the most widely used is WiFi though Zigbee and Zwave also exist LTE is working on the definition of a home cell (HeNB Home Internet Node B) with a due date of 2012
The process of standardization nevertheless follows its course in particular concerning the layers of software and protocols above the physical layer UPnP and DLNA belong to this category both of them currently having industrial projects in the form of components or software stacks
A choice must nevertheless be made amongst the numerous options included in these standards in order to emerge with a mass producible technology with minimum cost an absolutely necessary condition
The recent example of DTT decoders shows that the cost of installation must imperatively remain below euro100 for the end user (even in 2010 they were selling under $100 and the price has decreased in 2011) above this value very few buyers remain And of course a significant customer base is required to justify a proximity network composed of qualified technicians trained in standardized technology
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
10 Home Area Networks and IPTV
131 Comparison with automobiles the requirement of standards for home networks
The current situation is quite similar to the one experienced by the automotive industry up to the 1990s It emerged that it was essential to replace the bundles of copper wires transmitting information to sensors and controls with a local network-type multiplexed cabling
However for years three standards were up against each other and as a result no single one was implemented on a large scale because of the excessive price The choice was finally imposed for a single standard and it was able to use a sufficient industrial basis to establish itself in manufacture
In the field of home networks this unique choice has not been made It remains to be seen if the future will belong to PLC plastic optical fiber (POF) or to other technologies Most likely a short-term choice (for 2012) will be made which is not the same as the choice for the medium term (2020 or later) notably because of the roll out speed of fiber optics which favors of course a passive optical solution terminating at ldquodevicesrdquo or in their immediate vicinity
In the same way in sparsely populated areas the industrialization of LTE at 800 MHz or below can maintain a market of HeNB It seems likely that cheap gateways will be developed ensuring the inter-operability of two or three technologies each adapted to a different class of application
Japan South Korea and Hong Kong have posted very ambitious roll out objectives for very high speeds to include all households In 2008 in France the government passed the so-called ldquoLMErdquo law according to which all new housing must have high speed digital Internet access a supplementary plan will include the thirty or so million households already built and social housing
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 11
14 Bibliography
[BES 08] BESSON E France Numeacuterique 2012 ndash Plan de Deacuteveloppement de lrsquoEconomie Numeacuterique Secretary of State responsible for future planning the evaluation of public policy and development of the digital economy October 2008
[CHA 09] CHAUMONT J LAURENT A Le deacuteveloppement du Web ndash Enjeux et recommandations drsquoactions Direction Geacuteneacuterale de la Compeacutetitiviteacute de lrsquoIndustrie et des Services April 2009
[HUB 04] HUBERT JM Special issue of TELECOM review devoted to NOMADISM No 135 (Autumn 2004)
[PUI 09] PUISSOCHET A MICHAUD L BAJON J Etude sur les reacuteseaux domiciliaires agrave lrsquoattention du Conseil Geacuteneacuteral des Technologies de lrsquoInformation IDATE January 2009
15 Appendix the uses of very high bit rates
A traditional diagram of telecommunications shows a vertical structure of services each having its operator and its network
With generalized digitization of all services it appears that these networks transmit all kinds of binary data In addition current evolution shows that these binary streams progressively use all the IP protocol As a result the logic is to put a unified network in place generating scale savings This phenomenon is termed convergence
With convergence comes the increasing complexity of software (or material) management of the internal network at home or in a small business ndash here referred to as a home area network The issue now is to give clients an easy-to-use domestic infrastructure similar to plug and play
The availability of very high speed Internet is an innovative factor the increase in available bit rates allows the creation of new previously inaccessible services with limited connection of several kilobits per second and even with several megabits per second
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
12 Home Area Networks and IPTV
The evolution of uses brings out two strong tendencies ndash the volumes of data increase in particular because of richer
multimedia components (sound video)
ndash the multiplication of interactive applications in real time as much for the general public (VoIP interactive websites etc) as for professionals (telehealth teleworking etc) In the future these applications should be widely available They will make up the largest part of the exchanges supported by home networking
Figure 11 Before convergence
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 13
These larger and faster information exchanges require the use of very high speed links which should be fiber optic with a capacity of a gigabit
Figure 12 After convergence
151 Progressive deployment
From a technical point of view only monomode fiber optics allow subscriber connections of about a gigabit per second at a distance of several dozen kilometers However the widespread deployment of monomode optical fiber will take time since it has only just begun and even then only on a small scale Remember
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
14 Home Area Networks and IPTV
that the roll out of the French telephone network took almost ten years in the 1970s
In almost all cases only three technologies currently provide high speed Internet ADSL coaxial cable and PLC All three reuse the already existing physical infrastructures laid respectively by telecommunication operators cable TV companies and electric power utilities The mass roll out of fiber optics is hitting problems and will only hit more in the future with civil engineering problems putting a strain on completion of cabling to buildings and homes and other connection problems inside the buildings or properties
Operators have for the most part started to apply a progressive strategy founded in the physical properties of existing copper lines Unlike coaxial cables which show low losses telephone copper pair wires and electric power wires are characterized by a rapid decrease of the bit rate that they can transmit as the distance to the user (and their length) increases
For coaxial cable the problem is different investment has been carried out in a ldquobroadcastrdquo way with all clients receiving all the proposed video programs The technical result is nevertheless the same the opening of personalized services (VoD Internet access telephone) means calibrating that access by going through ldquobroadcastrdquo architecture limiting the number of subscribers in a ldquoclusterrdquo in a way which ensures a good quality of service for these personalized services
Therefore in all three cases by moving the access point closer to the subscriber the operator can offer an increased bit rate without changing all its infrastructure at once with a resulting spreading of its investments
For several years operators have used a fiber optic backbone to support various systems (SDH MPLS VPLS) The extension of these loops to the immediate vicinity of subscribers is now required because of the necessity to distribute high bit rate service servers in a more decentralized fashion to keep up with demand
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 15
The most interesting access points seem to be situated at property boundaries ndash meaning at the entrance to buildings in collective housing ndash allowing the use in buildings of a VDSL system bringing around 100 Mbps to subscribers carried by existing telephone copper pairs on copper power lines with high speed PLC transmission or using a coaxial infrastructure With optimized distribution engineering in a small building and even more so for a house PLC can guarantee a line speed of 3ndash10 Mbps As for cable using a fiber optic up to the door of a building ndash or to a housing estate ndash allows an operator to use coaxial cables straight to subscribers with a capacity of several hundred megabits per second
Thus there is strategic importance to the possession of the point of entry into a building or access to a housing estate In particular for a building it can be inconvenient to juxtapose electro-optical cross-connects or even more purely optical ones in the same place
Figure 13 Home area network service
The question of ldquofree competitionrdquo resolved (partially) by the unbundling of the telephone pair is being asked even more strongly in the case of very high speed bit rates Today in effect the signals circulating in fiber optics connecting subscribers belong to three incompatible categories
ndash cable standards with DOCSIS MOCCA etc
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
16 Home Area Networks and IPTV
ndash the GPON standard of the ITU
ndash the EPON standard of the IEEE
The major issue today is therefore being able to deploy fiber optics as close as possible to the subscriber and in particular to ldquodragrdquo them to buildings or groups of houses where potential clients live This is a major investment and at the same time a strategic one
On the one hand protecting a new investment an operator who has provided services to a building or estate (whether housing or industrialoffices) will be little inclined to share it with competitors
On the other hand optical technologies seem harder to ldquounbundlerdquo the connection of fiber optics seems more difficult than the wrapping of copper pairs at an aggregator point or splitter It is therefore necessary for public authorities and regulators to set precise standards and rules (standards for the type of fiber dividing rules etc) If this does not happen any deployment by the operators will not be shared as is currently the case
152 Client ubiquity
Clients of communication networks not only wish to have ever increasing bit rates Users also want those services they use to be available in the least deteriorated form possible when they are on the move In short users want to take their digital environment with them For this they are ready to pay as the success of roaming GSM has shown
There is a strong demand for network ubiquity allowing the subscriber to connect from different locations The paradigm is to free ourselves as far as possible from material and technological restrictions which require the user to work from a single station with the objective of having universal access to the digital world
This ubiquity comprises two different services
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Services Offered by Home Area Networks 17
ndash nomadism the user has the possibility of connecting upon arrival in different locations in order to obtain their services whilst remaining static ndash for example sat at a workstation Nomadism essentially rests upon the principle of using re-routing and identification software but does not require any special infrastructure Typically nomadism is represented by the WiFi terminals invested in by operators who profit from it It is also done by connecting ldquoas a guestrdquo using the access of another user
ndash mobility users are permanently connected and benefit from their services whilst on the move (example Blackberry) The complexity of the handover operations requires the use of a specialized network the final part of which must be a radio link Mobility is only ensured in mobile phone networks Beginning with Verizon Wireless in 2010 and increasingly now with the wide availability of network equipment and associated mobiles (expected to reach the mass market level in 2014) operators have started to invest in ldquoLTE-SAErdquo networks with a communication capacity of at least 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink Such networks should cover the globe by 2020 if they follow the example of GSM today
Mobility operates in a different domain to that of fiber optic The current digital bit rates are very modest Even with LTE-SAE we are still far from a gigabit but nevertheless comparable to the service offered by ADSL+ or even cable However there could be convergence of services at the cost of an adaptation of bit rate in the medium term for various applications
In light of this the 3GPP the standardization body in charge of LTE-SAE has designed femtocells (very small cellular base stations about the size of a WiFi transceiver) in order to extend mobility services inside private residences These femtocells can distribute the very high bit rate offered by LTE in the home However as with all radio systems this bit rate could be reduced due to interference with femtocells installed in neighboring households
Recommended