2.- Background, State of the Art and Comparative Analysis

With recent advances in broadband and video compression technologies, IPTV is finally making its way to homes around the world. IPTV generally refers to the real time delivery of broadcast television and on-demand video content over an IP broadband network for viewing on TV sets. But this IPTV term has also been used to describe streaming of television and video content over the public network for viewing on different devices, such as PCs or mobile phones.

Nowadays, there are many independent operating companies and international carriers which are currently offering IPTV services. Most, if not all DSL carriers are engaged in some stage of an IPTV rollout, field trial or service planning. Many cable or MSO operators are also looking to take advantage of IPTV to reduce infrastructure cost, extend geographic coverage and enable new services. As competition intensifies, a service provider’s ability to rapidly acquire and activate subscribers, reduce deployment cost and enhance subscriber experience will be critical to its success.

The Home Network connects both the home computer(s) and the IPTV STBs to a broadband service. The broadband service is typically an ADSL, a VDSL, or an Optical Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) from an incumbent or competitive carrier. This network may also provide communication between a media center computer and the IPTV STB. In the simplest case the media center computer can act as a server that stores and plays both video and audio content on the network connected to home entertainment system.

Several modules were involved into IPTV infrastructure a few years ago: Video and content delivery servers, IPTV middleware and subscriber management systems. These blocks are interconnected with IP broadband network to transport video streaming data from the head end to end-user STBs. But there are other premises in the market: STBs and gateways inside customer home. This is the new skill where the Service Provider must focus the market.

In-home distribution has been the weakest link in the IPTV delivery chain. The broadband gateway and TV STB are typically located in different places inside a home; different technologies are used according to requiring new or existing cabling (Ethernet, Coax, Power Line, Plastic Fiber) or WiFi technology.

IPTV multi-room service (by using several STBs) is already offered by a number of operators worldwide. However, the maturity for the inhome networking technology has not been reached yet; given its future spread use, it is necessary to know the best and more accurate solution for multimedia services home networking.

One of the first hurdles IPTV faced in early deployments was the distribution of services inside the home. Using Ethernet to deliver services to set-top boxes and PCs, IPTV required rewiring each home with cabling from the gateway to each STB, TV or PC location. The introduction of multi-stream (multiple decoders) residential gateway devices needs to seek a new approach to make the installation as easy and clean as possible in order to gain customer satisfaction.