Supporting next-generation multimedia services over a broadband access network

Broadband access networks, traditionally deployed for data services, increasingly need to support streaming services as well. Some papers have predicted the bit rate an access link should be able to carry in order to support a future mix of all services. These predictions typically take two trends into account: the fact that the information is offered in ever more detail (e.g., the use of high definition instead of standard definition video) drives the bit rate up, while improvements in codec technology have a tendency to decrease the bit rate. In this paper, we estimate the bit rate a user is likely to consume based on the limits of human perception. From this estimation, we infer what an access link in principle should be able to carry and how far the current wire-bound network technologies are from this ideal situation.