Personalized IPTV Services using Web-based Open ...

Personalized IPTV Services using Web-based Open Platform in NGN Gyu Myoung Lee

Jun Kyun Choi

Wireless Networks and Multimedia Services Department Institut TELECOM SudParis Evry, FRANCE [email protected]

School of Engineering Information and Communications University (ICU) Daejeon, KOREA [email protected]

Abstract—In this paper, we introduce the personalized Internet protocol television (IPTV) services for new business opportunities in next generation networks (NGN) and present the direction and strategies for services deployment in network operators’ perspective. Personalized IPTV will be key solutions for value added services over Internet and emergence of Web and NGN will provide open platform and new business model for IPTV services in the future. Keywords-NGN; IPTV; Web

I.

INTRODUCTION

The concept of next generation networks (NGN) [1] takes into consideration new realities in the telecommunication industry characterized by factors such as; the need to converge and optimize the operating networks and the extraordinary expansion of digital traffic. In NGN point of view, Internet protocol television (IPTV) based convergence services is defined as multimedia services such as television /video /audio /graphics /data delivered over IP-based networks managed to support the required level of quality of service (QoS)/ quality of experience (QoE), security, interactivity and reliability [2]. Until now, most of network providers have provided mainly simple access to the services (e.g., Internet access services) based on user devices such as Personal Computer (PC). The current simple broadband “access” oriented business will transition to NGN-based new business opportunities and in the future, we should expect to see value added services. One of key features of evolving business-driven services beyond the current NGN will be personalization for personalized features of application and services using Web-based open platform. In this paper, we consider IPTV services in NGN. For this, we investigate several feature and impact for IPTV services in NGN. To provide personalized features, we design overall architecture for Web-based open platform including user interface, database, and personalized agent in NGN. We also introduce the basic concept of personalized IPTV and emphasize the role of Web to support the personalization. For successful deployment and new business creation, we discuss strategies for network operators and the direction for further research work.

T1 and impact of IPTV services in NGN. In Section III, we explain a Web-based open platform for IPTV services in NGN. Then, in Section IV, we introduce the feature of personalized IPTV services and show several examples. In Section V, we discuss some considerations for deployment and future research work. Finally in Section VI, we come to a conclusion. II.

IMPACT OF IPTV SERVICES IN NGN

A. ITU-T NGN Standardization ITU-T SG13 2 is responsible for studies relating to the architecture, evolution and convergence of next generation networks including frameworks and functional architectures, signalling requirements for NGN, NGN project management, coordination across study groups and release planning, implementation scenarios and deployment models, network and service capabilities, interoperability, impact of Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6), NGN mobility and network convergence, and public data network aspects [3]. ITU-T NGN-Global Standards Initiative (NGN-GSI) is an effort which encompasses all NGN work across ITU-T Study Groups by co-located meetings of concerned Study Groups and Rapporteur Groups meet together to jointly progress the work under the auspices of NGN-GSI. Over the last few years the market drive for NGN standards has firmed up and a number of operators have announced implementation plans for the transition to NGN. Study topics of NGN-GSI are related to the development of architectures, interface specifications, and implementation guidelines in the form of ITU-T standards (Recommendations) for the realization of NGN [4]. SG13, the lead study group of NGN, has been devoted its activities to develop NGN frameworks and has almost finished the Release 1 framework related Recommendations [5, 6] during the study period (2005-2008). The results of the NGN Release 1 provided the building blocks on which the manufacturers, service and network providers can start to make the transition to NGN. In addition, the work of SG13 is now being focussed onto development of NGN Release 2 related Recommendations including IPTV and will continue works for 1

ITU-T: International Telecommunication Union – Telecommunication Standardization Sector SG13: Study Group 13, Next Generation Network This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Korea, under the ITRC support program supervised by the IITA (IITA-2008(C1090-0801-0036)) and also was supported by the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) grant funded by the Korea government(MEST) (No. R11-2000-074-02002-0) and was supported by the IT R&D program of MKE/IITA, [Development of Open-IPTV Technologies for Wired and Wireless NNetworks] as well.

The remainder of the article is organized as follows. In Section II, we summarize activities for NGN standards in ITU-

2

978-1-4244-2324-8/08/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE. This full text paper was peer reviewed at the direction of IEEE Communications Society subject matter experts for publication in the IEEE "GLOBECOM" 2008 proceedings.

enhanced NGN standards into the next study period (20092012). B. Impact of IPTV Services in NGN Figure 1 shows the value chains that are involved in the provision of an IPTV service in NGN which was standardized in ITU-T [7]. Content provider owns or is licensed to sell content or content assets. Service provider provides telecommunication services to customers and other users either on a tariff or contract basis. Network provider maintains and operates the network components required for IPTV functionality and end user is an actual user of the products or services. The end user can be a human being, organization, or telecommunications system that accesses the network in order to communicate via the services provided by the network. For IPTV services to be successful, new business model from all value chains must be considered. From the future trend in the end-user’s perspective, the end-user has moved from being a passive audience to being considered as the center of all industries. The value will be transferred from access service of traditional telecommunication providers to content-based services such as IPTV. The key factor underpinning the success of any end user-oriented service lies in the degree of consumer awareness. Personalized services for delivering appropriate content and services, tailor-made to the user’s needs should be considered. These services are to improve the user’s experience of a service.

In addition, the real power of IPTV is in the merging of entertainment and communications. This power can be created through the integration of telephone features into television experience and the mobility of video services. These integration services enable the user to access contents anywhere, anytime according to evolution of devices (e.g., personal mobile devices), mobile users, user’s satisfaction, etc. Using these new services, the network operators can gain more revenue through various business models which include bundled service, billing, advertisements, etc. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce the platform and concept for personalized IPTV services for new business opportunities in NGN and present the direction and strategies for evolution in network operators’ perspective. III.

WEB-BASED OPEN PLATFORM FOR IPTV IN NGN

A. IPTV Contents and Web The success of IPTV services depends on contents and Web is used as tool for providing services to users. Therefore, we investigate the relationship between IPTV contents and Web. There are many kinds of media which include video, audio /voice and data, etc. We can also consider IPTV contents as “new medium” as follows;

New Business Opportunities

IPTV Services

Business model - Bundled services - Billing/Pricing model - Advertisement model

Figure 1. New business model from value chain for IPTV services

IPTV Headend Contents DTV (Satellite, Cable)

End user

Presentation Engine - EPG Metadata Mgmt. Server

NGN

Content Syndication Server

(IMS)

On-line Off-line

Presentation Engine Execution Engine

Execution Engine -Personalization Service -Searching -Navigation & Selection -OAM & Accounting

Figure 2. Overall architecture of Web-based IPTV services in NGN

978-1-4244-2324-8/08/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE. This full text paper was peer reviewed at the direction of IEEE Communications Society subject matter experts for publication in the IEEE "GLOBECOM" 2008 proceedings.

x

Composed by video/audio/voice/data materials with human preferences

x

Hyperlinked by their related information chains or knowledge

x

User interface by any devices (i.e., TV, PC, personal digital assistant (PDA), mobile phones, etc)

Regarding IPTV contents, it’s important who create the contents. Although contents are traditionally created by broadcasting provider, individual people and 3rd party content provider (e.g., major content producer and drama writer, etc) are also important role for contents.

service, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is developing the Web services choreography description language (WS-CDL) that is targeted for composing interoperable, peer-to-peer collaborations between any type of participant regardless of the supporting platform or programming model used by the implementation of the hosting environment [10]. This open environment is well suitable for providing IPTV services with enhanced functionalities of end users. User Interface Personalized Agent Log-in/Registration

Customer explicit/implicit Information “Menu Ranking”

Advanced RSS Feed

The role of Web is to create, organize, search and share the contents. In future Web environment, requirements for IPTV are to handle and display of new medium, so-called IPTV contents. The Web’s flexibility enables a wide variety of IPTV services.

x

Contents: This domain is classified into DTV (i.e., digital broadcasting including satellite and cable), online and offline contents, etc. The contents require functionality which receives video content from producers and other sources. Afterwards, these contents are encoded and store in an acquisition database for video-on-demand (VoD), etc.

x

IPTV Headend: This domain requires a functionality which receives video streams in different formats. These video streams in different formats then reformat and encapsulate it for transmission with appropriate QoS indications to the network. This makes it ready for delivery to end-users. To support personalized IPTV services, web-based service and personalization functionalities are very critical in this domain.

x

NGN (IMS): The IP multimedia subsystem (IMS)based NGN [8] can support multicast distribution capability, QoS provision of multimedia traffic using various functionalities of service and transport stratum.

x

End user: The device of an end user provides the broadband network termination functionality and displays contents according to user’s preference using presentation engine and execution engine.

C. Open Service Platform Open service environment capabilities enable services reusability, portability across networks, and accessibility by third parties and user applications in NGN [9]. For open

- Registration information

- Personalized DB items

- Usage Information

- keyword-based item filtering

Menu handling based on User Preference

Database item (Program) DB

Therefore, IPTV contents and Web will be key factors for new business in a network. The network operators will focus on how to adopt Web technologies for creating new services and business model. B. Web-based IPTV Architecture For the IPTV services using Web, we designed the overall architecture of Web-based IPTV in NGN as shown in Figure 2. The proposed IPTV architecture consists of the following functional domains;

Sharing DB

EPG (Community-based)

User Profile DB Explicit User Information DB

VOD, Real-time public TV, Personalized TV… Monitor Personal History Community membership, gender, age, etc.

Figure 3. Web-based open user interfaces

To support open service environment to enable enhanced and flexible service creation and provisioning based on the use of standards interfaces, NGN-based IPTV services can use Web-based open user interfaces which are composed of user interface, database, and personalized agent as shown in Figure 3. User interface can handle various options based on user preference using Web features such as RSS, electronic program guide (EPG). Database includes the related information to control and handle users. Personalized agent manages personalized and customized items with the interaction of database. IV.

PERSONALIZED IPTV SERVICES AND USE CASES

A. Personalized IPTV Sevices Personalized IPTV services mean for consumers to access and consume what they want, when and where they want it in a personalized way on local and/or remote personal storage systems from both broadcast and online services. These services are targeting and customizing contents to individual users based on the followings; user preferences, user devices and/or access networks and natural environments such as mood, location, time, etc. Unlike the current Web platform, where users were passive observers of web site content continuously waiting for page refreshes to receive new information, the future Web-based open platform is dynamic, interactive and near real time. This Web environment’s advantage is not on creating retail community-type services of its own, although it still sees an opportunity in retail, but on building an open platform through which third-party application developers can access and launch their own services. Using interactive, collaborative and customizable features, Web platform can provide rich user experiences and new business opportunities for ITV services.

978-1-4244-2324-8/08/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE. This full text paper was peer reviewed at the direction of IEEE Communications Society subject matter experts for publication in the IEEE "GLOBECOM" 2008 proceedings.

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Service-oriented, Context-aware

Realize the converged IPTV services by combining Web technologies and broadcast technologies

Personalized, User-focusing, Collaborative Easy and Advanced User Interface Personalized IPTV and p2p Services

Figure 4. Personalized IPTV services

Standards point of view, IMS-based NGN will be a key platform for service control capabilities in IPTV. To support personalized IPTV services, we consider a new service platform which combines web-based open structure using Web and IMS-based NGN as shown in Figure 4. The proposed service platform and concept create new business and revenues for IPTV services with new features. The web-based IPTV portal is a platform that allows an organization to integrate its business information, applications, and services in a Web-based IPTV Portal for easy navigation and access. Key characteristics of personalized IPTV using web-based open platform can be summarized as follows; x

Integration of web technology and IPTV technology

x

Service-oriented, user-focusing, communicative, shared services

collaborative,

B. Use Cases of Personalized IPTV Sevices Here we introduce several user cases of personalized IPTV services which are represented in ITU-T Recommendation [11] in the viewpoint of customer as an end user. Content Provider (Customer)

Content Provider (Customer)

Service Provider

Content Info Registration

Customer

Content Search Metadata Server

Customer Search Result

Metadata Creation

Metadata Consumption

Session Request Encoding Session Info

Session Request Session Managing Server

Session Info

Decoding

Capturing

Based on the overall architecture of Web-based IPTV services in NGN, the detailed technologies for supporting Web-based personalized IPTV services and service scenarios are required. Among them, one of key solutions for personalized services is EPG which is an on-screen guide to scheduled programs, contents with additional descriptive information. We illustrate examples of interactive EPG, collaborative EPG, and customizable EPG configuration. Mashup platform of Web 2.0 is a website or application that seamlessly combines contents from more than one source into an integrated experience and it provides enhance user interface, value-added information by aggregation for IPTV services. In service point of view, web-service can support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. Therefore, we can provide several web-based services for personalized IPTV including personalized EPG service, social network service, widget style service, ontology-based service using semantic Web, target advertisement service, remote recording service, etc.

Session Join

Streaming

Streaming Receive Content

Figure 5. Example of personal broadcast services (illustration from [11])

1) Personal broadcast service The personal IPTV broadcast services provide a customer with a way to advertise personal content so that other customers can access such content. These services make the IPTV customer into a content provider. The service provider is responsible for relaying session information between the broadcasting customer and the receiving customers, possibly assuming some access control functions so as to ensure that a given customer is entitled to broadcast his/her personal contents.

978-1-4244-2324-8/08/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE. This full text paper was peer reviewed at the direction of IEEE Communications Society subject matter experts for publication in the IEEE "GLOBECOM" 2008 proceedings.

Figure 5 shows an example of personal broadcast services in Web-based NGN. Web is used for most of interaction with service provider which owns metadata server including contents source information, such as client ID, content ID, and other content-related information. NGN can manage sessions using IMS control functions. 2) IPTV portal services The development and provisioning of IPTV services through the use of portal sites will increase. Portal services are branded aggregation of products and services designed to satisfy a large majority of customers' needs, such as VoD, shopping, banking, communication, entertainment and other interactive services with a portal menu. The portal services can target customers by broadcasting commercials, advertisements and interactive responsible advertising. Portal services may provide walled garden access and/or direct Internet access. The IPTV portal services basically operate in a similar manner to a web service on the Internet and take advantage of the TV screen in the same way as data broadcasts in digital broadcasting, and control functions related to IPTV services. These services support hyperlink functions for linking to other parts of the same portal site or to other portal sites. In addition, using mutual authentication functions between the server and customer-premises equipment (CPE), it is possible to protect services against attacks from malicious providers, consumers, servers or CPEs. V.

DEPLOYMENT AND FUTHER WORK

A. New Businsess Opportunities and Services Deployment The proposed services give us new business opportunities such as; x

Contents business for access to high-value content and the creative presentation and usage rules of IP video content

x

Advertisement including traditional, targeted, ondemand, interactive advertising, and advertising message logging, etc

x

Comparison between network value (e.g., revenues) and customer value (e.g., ease of use, costs, experience)

x

Changes in legislation such as regulation according to policies

B. Key Areas for Futher Research For realization of personalized IPTV services, we need to focus on the development of relevant technologies through further research. The followings provide key areas for further research. x

Web technologies including web-based, intelligent content navigation, user created contents (UCC) program creation, and ontology-based technology

x

Intelligent multimedia technologies including metadata-based automatic program search and EPG creation, codec optimization and trans-coding for mobile terminal

x

Personalized networking technologies including location management of personalized IPTV center, p2p based personalized IPTV routing and distribution

VI. CONLCUSION In summary, personalized IPTV services will be key solutions for value added services over Internet and emergence of Web and NGN provides open platform and new business model for IPTV services in the future. Therefore, we have introduced the overall architecture for personalized IPTV services based on web-based open platform in NGN environment and present some examples for implementation and web-based IPTV services. New business opportunities and strategies for deployment of the proposed IPTV services will also be provided. The objective of this paper is to analyze the critical design issues for developing viable and feasible business models for personalized IPTV services. REFERENCES [1]

x

Billing/pricing model including free, subscription, pay per view or pay per use, etc

x

Social networking using Web platform along with a growing demand among mobile users to access the Internet with reality

The strategies for deployment of IPTV services must consider the growth of markets, the needs of new services and applications, regulatory challenges, competitive pressures including those from disruptive technologies, and technological evolution. Theses strategies can only be realized through the use of applications utilizing IP considering the followings; x

Market dynamics for service such as changing customer demands, competition

x

Technological advancements for adoption of new technologies

ITU-T Recommendation Y.2001, “General overview of NGN,” December 2004. [2] ITU-T Focus-Group IPTV Deliverables, 2008. [3] ITU-T SG13 website, available at http://www.itu.int/ITUT/studygroups/com13/index.asp. [4] ITU-T NGN-GSI website, available at http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/ngn/. [5] ITU-T Recommendation Y.2012, “Functional requirements and architecture of the NGN,” July 2006. [6] ITU-T Recommendation Y.2011, “General principles and general reference model for next generation networks,” October 2004. [7] ITU-T Recommencation Y.1910, “IPTV functional architecture,” consented at Sepember 2008. [8] ITU-T Recommendation Y.2021, “IMS for Next Generation Networks,” September 2006. [9] ITU-T Recommendation Y.2234, “Open service environment capabilities for NGN,” consented at September 2008. [10] W3C website, available at http://www.w3.org/. [11] ITU-T Draft Supplement TD 75 (IPTV-GSI), “IPTV service use cases,” April 2008.

978-1-4244-2324-8/08/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE. This full text paper was peer reviewed at the direction of IEEE Communications Society subject matter experts for publication in the IEEE "GLOBECOM" 2008 proceedings.