A Multimedia IMS-enabled Residential Service Gateway

Abstract

Internet access has been, until now, the main driver for the generalization of broadband connections in the residential market. Simple IP based services like email and web browsing were, during many years, the typical services provided to residential customers. Today the telecommunications market is changing and operators are looking for ways to provide, through those same IP broadband connections, value added services. These will, in one hand, increase their revenues and on the other hand, provide to the customer a wider range of services until now inaccessible. Triple Play is already a reality, although, the convergence between mobile and fixed networks is bringing to the home a new range of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) based services, which used to be exclusive of the mobile world. Although, to successfully achieve the delivery of these new services, the interface between residential and operator’s networks must be meticulously defined and implemented, by what is usually called the residential gateway (RGW). This paper focuses on emerging residential services and the implications that these impose on the RGW. The coexistence between IMS based services and non-IMS based services are also approached on this paper, with a special emphasis on RGW Quality of Service (QoS) issues.