It is estimated that by 2004 there will be more than 65 million DSL subscribers, and 16 million of those will subscribe to broadband media services. The market for broadband media services is driven by:

• content providers pushing new types of content to the Internet
• new broadband access technologies enabling cost-efficient media services
• broadband DSL services which will enable fixed operators to capture part of consumer’s new TV and video services and bundle them with traditional voice services, helping to reduce customer churn and margin pressure
• increasing demand followed by growing market awareness

In addition to media revenues, broadband media services can provide new revenue sources such as advertising, interactive services, and e-commerce revenue sharing. How did the demand for next-generation IP services evolve? Why do telecom operators find broadband media services so compelling? To answer these questions, let’s first take a brief look back at the evolution of broadband media services, and how broadband media services can create new opportunities for telecom operators.

Figure 1. Expected Broadband Media Services Subscriptions (in millions)A little over 25 years ago, operators had no concept of using telephone lines as anything other than carriers of voice traffic to consumers. Before divestiture in the telecom world, and for many years after, the only service operators offered to consumers was basic voice service. The cable and home-video industries were also in their infancy. Other than network television and radio, entertainment meant that consumers went outside the home, to movie theatres, shows, or concerts. The cable industry consisted of a few small start-up companies, basically small groups of people positioning a large antenna, hooking up analogue line amplifiers to feed the signal, and routing the signal to multiple homes. The few cable operators that existed at the time were small and mainly focused on their growing cable-programming customer base. At the same time, telecom operators had a firm hold on voice service. While telcos and cable companies serviced many of the same customers with their respective services, there was otherwise little convergence in the entertainment and telecommunications industries.

Then, beginning in the early 1980′s, and especially in the last 10 years, the telecommunications industry was forever changed. The proliferation of the wireless and home-entertainment industries, including cable, home computing, and widespread use of the Internet, has created both opportunities and challenges for traditional operators. Some have experienced bankruptcy or were merged with other companies. The few that remained were faced with new competition from start-up telecom companies, Internet service providers (ISP) and content providers for a share of the growing consumer telecommunications dollar. As many of these start-ups were forced out or merged, the dominant companies that remained had tremendous opportunities to bring more value to the consumer than ever before by providing first dial-up, then high-speed, or broadband, Internet access. Today, substantial revenue increases for telcos derived solely from voice services are limited, because of market saturation. New revenue sources must be integrated into their existing product lines. Enter broadband media services.

Broadband Media Services Market Potential for Operators

The role and scope of the telecom, Internet, and entertainment industries as global powerhouses have played an important role in the emergence of broadband media services. While cable and satellite remain viable markets for home entertainment, broadband media services delivered via IP have applications above and beyond movies and music, for both homes and businesses, and offers several advantages. As Internet content becomes more sophisticated and media companies expand development of digital content in Internet-compatible protocols, the demand for broadband media services will grow exponentially. As a result of this growth, operators will have significant opportunities for generating additional revenue. The telcos’ huge base of residential voice customers is a ready market for next-generation media services.

Some of the major benefits of broadband media services include the following:

• The infrastructure upgrades that are required for broadband media services do not involve significant civil and building-code regulation. In other words, to deploy broadband media services in an urban area, operators utilize their existing network infrastructure, so less land will need to be dug up to reinstall new infrastructure.
• Broadband media services revitalizes the revenue potential of the telcos’ existing infrastructure by providing new opportunities to service existing customers.
• Broadband media services offers telcos a way to compete with cable (CATV) operators’ packaged “voice + CATV services.”
• A higher level of security is possible with IP networks. Since users are authenticated, or recognized, truly customized services and marketing opportunities based on specific user interests can be created. This is not possible with current broadcast networks.
• New levels of customization and interactivity are possible, combining Internet with broadcast television or DVD, for example. Bundles of services are no longer pre-defined and schedules become obsolete—users decide on the media they want, and determine on their own when they want to experience it.
• The power of the Internet is taken to a new level with broadband media services, in that individuals can create their own content and distribute it to electronic devices around the world (televisions, wireless phones, laptop computers, etc.) at the click of a button.
• Since services are individual and not bundled, upgrades are done on a per-customer basis, unlike CATV where fundamental changes require upgrades to all served on a common/shared infrastructure.
• Pay TV (CATV or satellite) is an established service in many countries, so there is reason to believe that telcos that offer broadband media services will find an eager customer base willing to pay, providing customers recognize the value of broadband media services over existing entertainment services.

Generating marketing messages that will convey the value of broadband media services to customers will be crucial to obtain new subscribers and for consumer word-of-mouth diffusion to kick in and grow the broadband media services market. In order for telcos to be ultimately successful in deploying broadband media services, they will need to work closely with network and content providers to ensure that services are deployed and marketed effectively to their customers. Get more cheap checks online and try out new broadband services in your town to find out who provides best service.

IP network services have brought such benefits and convenience to people’s life, work, business, investment, consumption, and entertainment that the whole society is relying more and more on them. The All-IP network, a future uniform IP bearer of data, voice and video, together with the multi-service operation over it, is attracting more and more attention from operators. It has become a hot topic in the industry at this time of centrury beginning.

However, because the IP network rises with Internet, as a multi-service bearer, its best effort transport and campus network architecture are challenged by the network security, reliability and manageability of carrier-class operation. Transformation from the best effort structure to a reliable, secure, and controllable carrier-class network, therefore, becomes necessary.

During the transformation, the traditional IP network is subject to the following challenges:

• Security Challenges

  All IP network is open. It allows all service terminals to access from anywhere at any time. The security access control of an ALL IP network, therefore, becomes a critical issue. The security of an IP network concerns four aspects:

  First, how to authenticate the legitimacy and creditability of service terminals that request to (users) access. Bearer services are complex. The network must enable varied means to authenticate the identity of a terminal to prevent account forgery and avoid harm to the network caused by attacks or service theft.

  Second, how to control terminal traffic. When a terminal accesses, its traffic must conform to the service agreement. Therefore, the network must achieve access control to restrict the ability and right of a terminal to access the network and other terminals and ensure that the terminal obtains services from the network in accordance with the defined service scope. Such control can prevent uncontrollable traffic from threatening other terminals and consuming network resources.

  Third, how to ensure service security. A multi-service bearer network must be able to detect illegal services and take actions in real time to prevent illegal traffic from eating up network resources.

  Forth, how to ensure network security. All kinds of network attack and embezzlement are threatening the normal operation of the network. A multi-service bearer network must assure all-round network security, to prevent harms to network security from many a possible attack.

• Operability and Manageability Challenges

  In early IP networks, access, aggregation, forwarding and service layers are not clearly distinguished. The IP network is incapable of realtime service detection and therefore unable to change dynamically with the service. The operator has little control of services carried over the IP network. As a result, diversified services have not created significant increase of benefits. The expansion of bandwidth only benefits ISPs and ICPs of voice, IM and games with cheap network resources. The operator can but rue the losses because it is incapable of network management specific to differentiated services.

  The future oriented multi-service IP bearer market requires fast service deployment and flexible service management. The operator can promote its operation benefits only by providing more and better experience for telecommunications users.

  Hence, how to achieve controllable network service is included in the agenda of the day.

• QoS Challenges

  Telecommunications users’ requirements on Service Level Agreement (SLA) are increasing. The pressure on network maintenance is also growing. In a multi-service bearer network, however, many types of services are transported over a same network and therefore the network must provide different QoS assurance for different types of services. The best effort manner will inevitably result in disorder contention for network resources. With it, an effective SLA is impossible. A multi-service IP bearer must support the agreement mechanism. Once an agreement is entered, it must provide assured services in accordance with the commitment. Especially in the case of realtime voice and video, carrier-class control mechanism must be applied to realize service-based QoS guarantee and management.

  Then it becomes critical to find a suitable technology and solution to guarantee the service level of the IP bearer network.

Huawei MSCG Broadband Multi-Service Bearer Solution

As shown in the figure below, the flat and hierarchical network structure enables the IP network to bear multiple services. The aggregation layer forwards and controls services.

This solution optimizes the IP network in the following aspects:

• Access mode is unrelated to the core network. At the network edge, the aggregation layer screens the difference of access modes and realizes convergence of the access layer. As services are carried over a uniform IP/MPLS core, cost for repetitive construction of the service network is spared.
• Functional planes are clear. The hierarchical structure divides the network to several planes including access, aggregation, core and application. The functionalities of equipment serving different planes are designed for specific purposes, which facilitates the ease of management and the scalability of services. Such mode allows for modular and simple network management and saves the network OPEX.
• Traffic converges at the network edge. Aggregation is to gather services from different access networks to the uniform core network for more efficient distribution. It simplifies access network management and improves the efficiency of network operation.

This solution intends for a simple IP network as a controllable, operable multi-service bearer. The edge aggregation solution and its basic utilities are especially important.

In the solution, the network edge aggregation layer controls service security and QoS to ease access network management and ensure that services accessed to the core are from legal identities. All traffic converges at the network edge before flowing to the core or access network. The aggregation capability of the aggregation layer equipment is then critical for effective operation support and management. Therefore, in an IP multi-service bearer network, the large capacity multi-service control gateway (MSCG) must be installed at the core network edge to check the legality of all user requests, realize dynamic service detection and differentiation, execute policy control, guarantee QoS, allocate network resources, and distribute traffic flows. The MSCG plays a vital role at the MAN edge.

To help operators realize broadband IP multi-service operation, Huawei has launched its large capacity MSCG, the ME60, which provides rich bearer control capabilities and carrier-class reliability. ME60 resolves the worries for IP multi-service bearer control:

Network Security

As a large capacity MSCG, ME60 considers securty control at the access, network and service layers:

• Access Layer Security

  1) ME60 authenticates the identity of terminals in the username+password or DHCP+ mode. This can effectively prevent account forgery. Such authentication differentiates between Internet access of PCs and IPTV access of STBs.

  2) The strong quintuplet based ACL flexibly controls accesses to the network. It assures that a terminal can only obtain network services within the allowable service scope.

  3) ME60 integrates Session Border Control (SBC) functions. At the border of access aggregation, it functions as the signaling agent of SIP, MGCP, H.248, and H.323 and the media agent of RTP/RTCP and HTTP for IP sessions. It also realizes the NAT/FW, supervision and measurement of media streams. All these guarantee the secure access of voice terminals.

• Network Layer Security

  1) ME60 utilizes ACL to isolate network layer resources, control network layer traffic, and ensure network layer transport security.
  2) ME60 supports rich protocol authentication means to guarantee service security at the network layer.

  3) For VoIP, ME60 isolates the NGN network and public terminals.

  4) ME60 integrates the state inspection firewall and Pinhole firewall. It can prevent all types of network attacks.

• Service Layer Security

  The adoption of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) can detect terminal services, supervise P2P traffic, analyze active packets, and enable policy control. Thus, ME60 can effectively prevent illegal traffic, ensure reasonable utilization of bandwidth, and guarantee network security. It allows the operator to execute content based charging and avoid unlimited consumption of network bandwidth.

Operability and Manageability

ME60 provides DPI based service management and Dynamic Service Gateway (DSG) based service operation to promote the operability and manageability of the whole network.

In terms of service management, ME60 uses DPI to differentiate service at the application layer and further apply different control policies according to the service type. The adoption of DPI changes the extensive management status to service based intensive network management and transforms the operator from “a pipeline provider” to “an integrated information provider”. DPI enables the operator to provide different service policies for different contents. DPI also enables the operator to have a correct idea of the network trend, making the network value increase because of services rather than bandwidth.

In terms of service operation, ME60 provides the DSG solution. With the DSG solution, users can select required services or bandwidth dynamically. Users can choose appropriate service parameters to achieve best service experience.

With the cooperation of flat hierarchical networking and the DSG solution, the operator can deploy value-added services quickly. Such a solution enables network resources to create significant and sustainable benefits for the operator through service operation.

Global QoS Guarantee

ME60 realizes global QoS guarantee from two aspects: excellent QoS performance and global QoS solution.

ME60 is capable of QoS control by stream classification, bandwidth control, priority scheduling and congestion avoidance, thus providing realtime bandwidth monitoring and quality QoS guarantee for any service of any user. ME60 also provides hierarchical scheduling by embedding a 5-level scheduler. When congestion occurs at some point in the access network, hierarchical scheduling can assure that important services are not lost. It guarantees the precedence of gold users over non-gold users. This avoids the weakening of bearer capability in the whole access network due to congestion at one node.

In terms of global QoS solution, ME60 works with the network resource manager to provide Connection Admission Control (CAC), thus realizing reasonable utilization of network bandwidth.

In this solution, when a user initiates a request for a value-added service, the network resource manager judges whether the network has enough bandwidth resources to assure this service. When it finds that the resource is insufficient, it rejects the request. It only accepts the request when the bandwidth resource is sufficient. Then ME60 executes corresponding policy control of bandwidth, priority and QoS, and differentiates the service. ME60 provides realtime bandwidth monitoring and traffic evacuation for any service of any user to ensure that the operator provides quality assured services to telecommunications users once they are provisioned.

With this solution, broadband network services and resources interact with each other virtuously, which avoids the unchained consumption of resources due to the early best effort transmission. The QoS in the whole network is thus guaranteed and telecommunication users will have good experience when using the broadband network.

To sum up, in the solution of IP multi-service bearer and operation, the MSCG is playing an unsubstitutable role to push the progress of All-IP deployment. Its importance lies in promoting the transformation and profitability of operator services. In this sense, MSCG can be regarded as the engine of All-IP multi-service operation.

This tutorial describes the evolution and technologies involved in broadband media services delivery. A brief history tracing the evolution of broadband media services will be presented, along with descriptions of multimedia standards, potential services, and the roles of the various entities involved in creating broadband media services–network providers, content providers, services providers, and businesses and consumers. After working through the tutorial, participants will have a general understanding of the scope, technology, and benefits of broadband media services.Broadband and bandwidth
“Broadband” refers to a type of network connection that supports a very high bit rate, as opposed to “narrowband,” which supports a lower bit rate. The higher the bit rate, which is a measure of speed of transmission of bits per second (bps), the faster the transmission will occur in a given period of time. “Bandwidth” is a measure of capacity. Greater bandwidth allows more information to be communicated in a given period of time. Broadband media services delivery requires transmitting large amounts of information quickly, so the combination of fast broadband transmissions and large amounts of bandwidth required to deliver information are the foundation of broadband media services delivery. But this is just the beginning of the broadband media services story, because the true value of broadband media services lies in the actual services that can be delivered across these high-speed, high-bandwidth networks, the entirely new “on demand” way customers will access them and the customized and personalized ways that individuals will interact with these services. With that in mind, we can formulate a definition of broadband media services:

Broadband media services is the seamless, customized, “on demand” creation and delivery of multimedia services to homes, businesses, and mobile users, including entertainment services (movies, interactive games, broadcast TV), infotainment (e-learning, online training) through high-speed Internet protocol (IP) networks.

Beyond fast Internet access
“Broadband media” is sometimes called “streaming media” because the services, or “content,” that is delivered via broadband networks is digitized, and received by users of the content in continuous real-time “streams.” Broadband content is digitized and accessed utilizing IP, the standard protocol used for Internet access today. In fact, high-speed IP access through digital subscriber lines (DSL) that utilize existing voice lines for high-speed transmissions, is the foundation of the broadband media services network, and DSL is available in many parts of the world today. DSL is a group of increasingly high-speed technologies that enables fast Internet access in homes and businesses. DSL “always on” connections will also form the basis of the sophisticated broadband media services networks of tomorrow.

Fast Internet access barely scratches the surface of the powers of broadband, DSL, and IP technology, which, combined in broadband media services, will connect people and businesses around the world like never before. Broadband media services will put the consumer in total control by enabling personal, custom, on-demand viewing of entertainment, e-learning, video games, and other types of content. Individuals will choose what they want to hear, see, or be entertained by on their own, and people will no longer have to plan around preconceived broadcast schedules for home entertainment. Eventually, we will decide our own schedules for much of our entertainment. Furthermore, broadband media services will allow individuals to easily create their own content, personalize it, and distribute it for viewing on TVs, PCs, remote laptops, and mobile phones and other wireless devices around the world, instantly.

Broadband media services provides endless possibilities for consumers to choose and personalize their entertainment and infotainment. Broadband media services will also create new revenue streams for operators, media companies, and service providers through enhanced usage of existing networks, branded media portals, interactive “one-to-one” advertising and endless e-commerce possibilities. The proliferation of high-speed broadband IP access and broadband media services will require content creators to distribute large amounts of rich media to a global audience of high-speed users with increasingly greater demand for access to specific services. The challenges for broadband media development include understanding true consumer wants and needs for services and perfecting the technology standards behind the high data rates and significant bandwidth required for seamless delivery of high-quality multimedia services.