B@HOME: The Future of Broadband, Multimedia Services in the Home
The use of broadband access technologies like ADSL and Cable modems is in acceleration in Europe. The Netherlands holds a rather unique position, having amongst the highest cable penetrations in the world (96%) and a total broadband penetration amongst households (27%, December 2003), being already the highest in Europe. People use this “third generation” of broadband access mainly for the purpose of fast internet access and being always on line at more or less the same cost as before. The next generation (NG or 4G) will bring us connections that are symmetric, with a sustained rate of 10 Mbps and higher. It will give a much better end-to-end “quality of service”, guarantees for security and privacy and provisions for the management of service and a better ease-of-use. All kinds of wireless personal and home networks will bring broadband further into the home to a broad range of terminals. This NG broadband infrastructure will enable the high-quality provision of broadband applications to the home.
Economic and social relevance
This further extension of the reach and the magnitude of broadband will need huge investments, which needs to be done by a range of public and private organisations. It has been made a priority in the European member states, because it is viewed as a powerful source of productivity gain and improvement in living standards. In the Netherlands, the Dutch government has brought the “Breedbandnota” in the spring of 2004 to the Parliament bringing a further renewal to the Dutch broadband policy focussing on applications. In the private sector, important players are network operators (like KPN and UPC) that provide access networks to the home, service providers that want to bring broadband services and applications to the home (like Endemol and e.g. game provider Electronic Art), home and access network equipment providers that want to sell wired and wireless local area and access networks for/to homes (like Lucent Technologies) and terminal providers that produce smart terminals that can deliver the broadband applications to the end-user (like Philips).
State-of-the-art
In the application domain of media entertainment, the state of the art is mainly ‘delivery of content’ to the end-user via broadcast channels. IP based networks are also used to deliver media content which allows for delivering Video on Demand (VoD) services. In the years to come one of the challenges for the media industry is to adapt to a changing user environment. More and more the PC – and other internet devices – becomes a part of the delivery chain. Although content that e.g. is downloaded on the PC might be watched on the TV. People become content producers by themselves: with digital cameras (sometimes in mobile phones) photo or video content is created and shared with others. The question is how can media productions change to adapt to this type of user, and how should broadband and broadcast technology be used to realise it. What kind of business models and end-to-end service architecture is most suitable for this application domain?
Goal and objectives
The project B@Home therefore aims to develop new business models and technical architectures for end-to-end provision of ubiquitous broadband services to the home, supporting people with their needs for infotainment, health care, education and work. The most important research questions addressed by the project are:
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Which dynamic business models are viable for generic network and service architectures connecting broadband access networks and home networks in different application domains? Which roles in these business models are feasible for policy makers and end-users?
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How is standardization in broadband home networks and applications evolving? What are the implications for business and policy?
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How can networks and services be managed (remotely) in an environment of multiple service and network providers? What are the viable architectures for service discovery, access and delivery in heterogeneous home networks.
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What are the functional and technical requirements, the user experiences and the useful business models for applications in media-entertainment at home?
Results
The main results of the project are:
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Applications and demonstrator: a validated demonstrator in the media entertainment domain. This demonstrator will use prototyped applications and proof-of-concept infrastructure parts. It will fit into the end-to-end architectures and business models defined elsewhere in the project.
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Business models, standards and policies: a validated, dynamic business model for generic network and service architectures connecting multiple access networks and home networks in different application domains including new roles for end-users. A framework for the evaluation of standards and recommendations for government policy and regulation based on this business model and these standards.
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End-to-end service architecture: a reference architecture including requirements for the integration of public access and private home networks and integral service management.
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