Advanced Content Delivery, Streaming, and Cloud Services

Chapter 6Cloud-Based Content Delivery to Home Ecosystems

Tiago Cruz, Paulo Simões, and Edmundo Monteiro

Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

6.1 Introduction

Cloud computing is the result of several technological advances, such as virtualization and the pervasive availability of broadband network access, enabling a multitude of new services and support infrastructures. Specifically considering telecommunication operator infrastructures, private cloud services are already widespread, supporting key services such as content provisioning, authentication, authorization, accounting, and management.

Cloud paradigms encompass not only content delivery but also the whole home ecosystem, where many users consume content and the associated services. This is a peculiar ecosystem, where different devices coexist (e.g., set-top boxes (STBs), Internet Protocol (IP) telephones, storage devices, media players, classic desktops, smart meters, home automation devices, mobile devices) behind the Residential Gateway (RGW) and the broadband access network.

For this specific ecosystem, over-the-top (OTT) content delivery solutions may strongly depend on operator support, especially in countries where operators themselves also compete against OTT service providers with their own content and services. This happens because the delivery of services to the home ecosystem depends on aspects as diverse as management, quality of service (QoS), protocol translation, ...