QoS Management of Multicast and Broadcast Services in Next Generation Networks

This paper analyses the current developments in terms of telecommunication networks design and investigates their limits concerning the control and management of multicast flows. An innovative approach is then introduced to extend the current architectures, so far mainly focused on unicast services, to handle multicast and broadcast services in a heterogeneous networks environment. The proposed solution aims at guaranteeing End-to-End QoS, efficiently handling the underlying network resources and integrating the emerging broadcast technologies in both intra and inter-domain scenarios. The paper is centered on the results achieved within the IST/FP6 Integrated Project DAIDALOS II (Designing Advanced network Interfaces for the Delivery and Administration of Location independent, Optimized personal Services ).