WiLiTV: A low-cost wireless framework for live TV services

The bandwidth required for TV content distribution is rapidly increasing due to the evolution of HDTV and Ultra HDTV. Service providers are constantly trying to differentiate themselves by innovating new ways of distributing content more efficiently with lower cost and higher penetration. We propose a cost-efficient wireless framework (WiLiTV) for delivering live TV services, consisting of a mix of wireless access technologies (e.g., Satellite, WiFi and LTE overlay links). In the proposed architecture, live TV content is injected into the network at a few residential locations using satellite antennas. The content is then further distributed to other homes using a house-to-house WiFi network or LTE overlay. Our problem is to construct an optimal content distribution network with the minimum number of satellite injection points, while preserving the highest Quality of Experience (QoE), for different neighborhood densities. We evaluate the framework using time-varying demand patterns and a diverse set of home location data provided from an operational content distribution network. Our study demonstrates that the architecture requires 84-88% fewer satellite injection points, compared to traditional architectures. We have also shown that our proposed WiLiTV architecture is more robust in its support for several TV formats.