Policy-Based Network Management in Home Area Networks: Interim Test Results

This paper argues that Home Area Networks (HANs) are a good candidate for advanced network management automation techniques, such as Policy-Based Network Management (PBNM). What is proposed is a simple use of policy based network management to introduce some level of Quality of Service (QoS) and Security management in the HAN, whilst hiding this complexity from the home user. In this paper we have presented the interim test results of our research experiments (based on a scenario) using the HAN testbed. After using policies to prioritize different traffic, packet loss decreased to 30% and VoIP quality improved dramatically without employing any intelligent bandwidth allocation technique.