IPTV Quality of Service Management in Home Networks

In the progressive development of IPTV technology, special attention is being paid at the assurance of an appropriate service quality to the end user. Several research and standardization activities are studying how to provide QoS for IPTV streams along the delivery path from the Head End office/video server to the end user. The customer's premise is the last part of this path, and the one that is typically not under control of an operator. At the same time, the Home Network is becoming a complex environment, including a variety of devices and different network technologies. This paper presents an architecture for IPTV quality of service management focused on the Home Network. A key point of this solution is the introduction of service assurance functions in the Home Gateway. A prototype of the proposed solution proves the applicability of this approach.