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Framework for Delivering IPTV Services over WiMAX Wireless Networks

Ioan Vlad Uilecan, Chi Zhou, Member, IEEE, Guillermo E. Atkin, Member, IEEE
network has many advantages such as bandwidth efficiency. Besides TV contents, the networks can also carry digital audio, telephony and data, allowing cable and phone companies to deliver triple play services over the same existing infrastructure. However, while there are many advantages to using IP, there are also considerable challenges. For example, transmitting TV services over IP faces significant Quality of Service (QoS) challenges for the service provider. Video over IP is unreliable and something as simple as channel surfing can easily become a problem on an IP network. The premises that made possible the appearance of IPTV services include the development of Gigabit Ethernet, the appearance of high speed switches and routers, and the availability of QoS provisioning for IP networks. IPTV has a typical bandwidth requirement of 2Mbps/channel to 8Mbps/channel (HDTV) and it requires a broadband connection with QoS support. The only certain way, until now, to meet the consumers needs is to use fiber all the way to the home. This allows bandwidth up to 1Gbps, and can provide 30-75 Mbps per user [8], [12]. With a typical 20Mbps for a HDTV channel we have to keep in mind that when changing the channels, even for a short time, there are two streams simultaneously transmitted. This means about 40Mbps for only one TV. If we count multiple TV sets in a household and add the data traffic and voice, all these can reach to about 100Mbps per connection. Fortunately, PON networks can provide this kind of fast speed. Until now, there are many companies delivering IPTV over optical fiber networks [15]. The quality of the signals delivered using optical fiber is superior to that of cable TV systems. Fiber systems make it possible to supply signal to several TV sets, including reasonable cable loss. Given that many fiber systems have adequate bandwidth to deliver an MPEG-2 signal (even HDTV) using IP, this is a very feasible solution. IPTV is very popular as it delivers the content to users whenever they want. The next step is to deliver this content wherever the users are. This is where a wireless technology that supports mobility is needed. Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) technology is based on IEEE 802.162004 and 802.16e2005 standards for fixed and mobile wireless access in metropolitan area networks (MAN) [3]. It supports data rates of 70Mbps over ranges of 30km with mobility support. Nowadays, WiMAX is the only wireless

AbstractThe Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service is becoming more and more popular among telecommunications companies because it can deliver TV programs anytime anywhere. Based on IP protocol, IPTV features advantages like bandwidth efficiency and ease of management. IPTV supports both broadcast and unicast services like LiveTV and VideoOnDemand. WiMAX wireless system, capable of ensuring high bandwidths and low latencies, is suitable for delivering multimedia services. In addition, it also provides wide area coverage, mobility support, and non-line-of-sight operation. Therefore, WiMAX is a promising solution for delivering IPTV services anytime anywhere, especially to rural areas or remote locations. This paper identifies the challenges in delivering IPTV over WiMAX wireless system and proposes a framework to provide some solutions to those challenges, at MAC and Physical layers. Taking advantage of the WiMAX features, IPTV services can be delivered at low costs and with high audio/video service quality. Index Terms IPTV, QoS, WiMAX, VideoOnDemand, LiveTV

he increase of satellite services and digital cable, and the appearance of HDTV have had a big impact on the television market. Besides the standard TV services, nowadays people want to be able to watch their favorite TV programs and shows anytime anywhere using their mobile devices, all these without a loss in video or audio signal quality. They also want to be able to use the same device for other services such as voice and data. The telecommunications companies are trying to explore the existing technologies to provide all these by the means of the TripplePlay services. A new TV delivery method, the Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), has appeared as a solution to ubiquitous TV access. IPTV is a system capable of receiving, decoding and displaying video streams transmitted as Internet Protocol (IP) packets. The video content is first compressed and encoded into video streams, which are then transmitted over the network as IP datagrams. Sending digital video using compression over an IP
I. V. Uilecan, Dr. Chi Zhou, and Dr. Guillermo E. Atkin are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL 60616, USA (phone: 312-567-3417, Fax: 312-567-8976; e-mail: iuilecan@iit.edu, zhouc@ece.iit.edu, atkin@ece.iit.edu).

I. INTRODUCTION

1-4244-0941-1/07/$25.00 c 2007 IEEE

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system capable of offering high QoS at high data rates for IP networks. WiMAX medium access control (MAC) layer supports real time polling services (rtPS) ensuring required bandwidth and minimum latencies for video services through quality of service (QoS). It uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) physical layer (PHY). It also uses adaptive modulation and coding schemes and forward error correction (FEC) to increase service quality [3]. Moreover, it is an all IP access network and offers transparency for packet based core networks. All these make WiMAX an ideal choice for IPTV applications with ubiquitous access. Nowadays, some telecom providers have already deployed IPTV systems (Verizon offers 300+ channels of television service) but the service is not delivered over WiMAX, but by fiber running directly to the home. In the future, WiMAX could deliver IPTV to rural regions, off-shore rigs and other remote locations, with high degree of video and audio quality at affordable prices. It may also be well suited for medium quality video services delivered to mobile devices such as notebooks and WiMAX capable phones. In this paper we aim to identify the challenges related to delivery of IPTV services over WiMAX networks Then we propose a framework that we would like to use next in implementing a system capable of delivering IPTV services over an IP based WiMAX network. We try to give some solutions especially from the Physical and MAC layers. The paper is organized as follows. The background of the problem is explained in Section II. The challenges are in more details presented in Section III. The proposed framework and solutions are given in Section IV while our conclusions come in Section V. II. BACKGROUND A. What is IPTV and how does it work? IPTV is a system where a digital television service is delivered using the IP protocol over a network infrastructure. It covers both live TV (broadcasting) as well as stored video (Video on Demand). The playback of IPTV requires either a personal computer or a "set-top box" connected to a TV. Video content is typically compressed using either a MPEG-2 or a MPEG-4 codec and then sent in an MPEG transport stream delivered via IP Multicast in case of live TV or via IP Unicast in case of Video on Demand. At the broadcasters side, the following steps occur: the broadcaster encodes the TV program into MPEG2 and sends the stream to the satellite uplink (IP QoS is applied by the IP stream platform). The video stream is up linked to the service providers satellite in DVB format. At the national head end, the video signals are pulled from satellites and encoded if necessary (e.g., MPEG-2, H.264). The video stream is broken up into IP packets and sent into the

providers network. The video streams are received by a local office, which delivers them out to the subscribers. Here some local content (TV stations, advertising, and video on demand) can be added. Also the user authentication, channel change requests, billing, Video-on-Demand requests are done at the local office. At the receiver side, a residential gateway serves the role of both an end point of the Internet and a starting point of a home network. It transmits incoming traffics from the Internet to the home network while maintaining its QoS. If the incoming traffic has no QoS information, the residential gateway should add new QoS information to the traffic. The QoS method described in IEEE802.1Q has a weakness, i.e., the service traffic belonging to the same priority group has no difference in their priority level. In this case, a residential gateway should dynamically regenerate the QoS priority of the requested IPTV channel in order to give higher priority than any other TV streams. At the users side, a set top box (STB) or a computer, connecting to the home DSL, fiber or wireless line, reassembles the IP packets into a coherent video stream and then decodes the contents. In general, the consumers highly expect that IPTV works the same way as standard TV. They expect to be able to turn on the TV, navigate through channels, and watch all the way through without the transmission breaking down. They do not expect to wait seconds for changing the channels or to watch a TV program which stutters. This may pose a major challenge for companies that plan to use IP networks to transmit television programs. In a video stream, even with high QoS network support, errors may occur. For unicast, the STB can request the server to resend lost or corrupted packets but for multicast streams, it is very important to ensure that the network is well designed. In this case, owning the network is a great advantage since the provider can improve the quality of their delivered services themselves, instead of relying on third parties or internet. Also by using QoS they can prioritize the video traffic to prevent delay or fragmentation of the signal. Without end-to-end control, it would be more difficult since QoS requests are not often recognized between operators. B. IPTV Network Elements An IPTV network, as illustrated in Fig. 1, consists of four

Fig. 1 IPTV Architecture

major elements.

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1) Video Head-End: This is where video is captured and processed before being sent over the IP network. A head-end takes each individual channel and encodes it into a digital video format (e.g., MPEG-2). 2) Service Provider Core/Edge IP Network: This is the core network of the service provider and includes hardware from many vendors to construct this network. 3) Access Network: The access network connects the Service Provider to the Subscribers home. Currently it can be a DSL line or PON using optical fiber. 4) Home Network: The home network is the last mile. This distributes the IPTV services throughout the home. The connection gets into the household through the device and is then connected to a computer or to the STB which in turn is connected to the TV. C. IPTV offered services The IPTV services can be classified as multicast services (live TV) and stored services, i.e., Video on Demand (VoD). 1) Video on Demand: VoD is a service that allows a subscriber to order certain programs. The user orders from a menu and a request signal is sent from his terminal to a video file server in order to play the requested program. This kind of service may accept some delays in transmission and even retransmissions are possible in order to increase quality of service. The following additional functions need to be integrated in this service in order to meet the client expectations: easy menu navigation and Fast forward/reverse function. VoD is a point-to-point service as opposed to a broadcast service, and IP is an efficient mechanism for delivering such services because it can satisfy the QoS requirements. 2) Live TV: LiveTV refers to television broadcasts of events or performances in real time, with very small delays. As opposed to VoD, this kind of service may not experience any delays in transmission, so the management of the network is very important in this case. This kind of service has another set of functions that it needs to fulfill: PiP picture in picture capability, instant channel change, and easy menu navigation. For both services, it is also necessary to be able to deliver multiple channels simultaneously, in order to support the picture-in-picture mode, simultaneous record and watch functions, and multiple TVs in different rooms. D. WiMAX capacity for IPTV delivery While all the streams are multicast from the national head end to local offices at the same time but here, the local last mile line can not support all the channels at once. The question is how to send hundreds of channels to an IPTV subscriber with a WiMAX line? The answer is only sending a few at a time. A Windows Media stream takes up 1.0 to 1.5Mbps for SDTV; ten channels could be sent at once with bandwidth left over for voice and data. HDTV uses about 20-25Mbps and for H.264 the rates are 7 to 8 Mbps. This means the number of

video streams sent from the local office to the subscriber is about four due to the limited bandwidth. When a user changes the channel on their STB, it does not "tune" a channel like a cable system, but it switches channels by using the IP Group Membership Protocol (IGMP) to join a new multicast group. This way, only signals that are currently being watched are actually sent from the local office to the user and so, the WiMAX available bandwidth may be enough for delivering IPTV services. III. APPLICATIONS AND CHALLENGES In this section, we identify the challenges which the system may face when delivering IPTV services over WiMAX networks. We are relating all these challenges to the applications they are addressed for. A. Multicast capability One great advantage of the WiMAX is its multicast capability. The multicast technology allows a base station (BS) to send video packets to a subset number of stations. For example, during a Super Bowl game, a large number of viewers may want to watch a single channel. Using the multicast feature of WiMAX, all of these users can be served by consuming a relatively very small bandwidth. The idea can be extended to any TV channel as it is expected to be more than a single viewer for any TV show. B. Instant Channel Change On an IP-based network though, channel surfing can become an issue because only one stream of video is transmitted to the TV at any one time. When the TV viewer wants to change the channel, he punches a remote that sends the signal to the television set which, in turn, sends another signal on to a router on the network. The router then has to stop sending the original stream and then send a new stream based on the requested channel. This creates a delay between the time the router stops sending over the old channel and when it starts sending over the new requested channel. The situation is worsened when the router is subjected to multiple change requests all at the same time. C. Mobility IPTV is expected to provide ubiquitous access with mobility support. Providing services to mobile users is always a challenge, especially the multimedia services. Another advantage of WiMAX is the support for data communications at vehicular speeds, feature which was impossible until now in regular cable TV systems. D. Jitter Another problem that arises when IP networks handle video is due to the way the network handles data. In an IP network, data is broken up into small packets and then sent off separately. At its final destination, all the data packets are reassembled again. When video is put on an IP network, that

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video is also broken up into small packets and sent from the source, the broadcaster, through the network, to eventually be reassembled into video that TV viewer gets to watch. While this system is a good way of sending ordinary data files, when applied to video, it creates problems. Video files are extremely large and to send a complete file over might take several hours. The solution is to have the video play as the packets are downloaded. However, due to factors such as routing changes, network congestion or timing drift, the packets do not all arrive at the same rate or even in the correct order. This problem is known as jitter. The solution to this problem is a jitter buffer. The jitter buffer stores the packets as they come in. These packets are assembled in the buffer ahead of their use so that late packets can be added. E. Overhead In a packet based system, each layer is adding significant amount of overhead to the initial packet, therefore reducing the effective payload capacity and the altering the quality of the IPTV signal. WiMAX is decapsulating the frames up to the MAC layer, therefore it can use payload header suppression and compression techniques in order to reduce the amount of overhead at Physical and MAC layers. F. Transceiver Design WiMAX systems are using very performing radio transceivers. The parameters of such a transceiver are high stability, low noise, high linearity and wide dynamic range. Beside these, in order to support IPTV and video applications, a high bandwidth is also required. G. Power Consumption The power consumption is another important issue in designing a WiMAX system able to support IPTV services. A TV program can last a few hours; therefore the system delivering will use a high amount of power. A good way to reduce the power consumption is to implement different modes of operation that can be changed dynamically according to the needs (e.g. idle mode, sleep mode). Another way to save energy is by using a high sensitivity receiver. H. System Capacity The proposed system has to be able to support multiple users. A good way to increase the capacity of the system is to use high gain sectorized antennas. By using such a method, the IPTV services can be delivered further away and to a bigger number of customers. IV. WORK PROPOSAL A. System Architecture A schematic architecture for delivering IPTV over WiMAX (to a fixed subscriber) is presented in Fig. 2. From the service provider (if it owns a WiMAX BS) the IPTV transport stream should be encapsulated into OFDM frames. Otherwise, an

intermediate link is needed from the service provider to a WiMAX BS. This may often be SONET, so an Ethernet-SONET mapping is needed at the provider and a SONET-WiMAX demapping needed at the WiMAX base station. The OFDM frames are then transmitted to the WiMAX

Fig. 2 IPTV over WiMAX Schematic Architecture (fixed subscriber)

air link. A subscriber station (CPE) will capture these frames and regenerate the traffic streams. These streams are then sent for display to the IPTV client. In the other way, the client should be able to choose the channels and transmit other signaling options. IPTV as we said is currently being delivered over fixed networks. How about in mobile ones? Such a system may be depicted in Figure 3, where the IPTV is delivered from the service provider regardless of the type of network, through a fixed or wireless network. The content/rate adapter block is here responsible for adapting the IPTV service bandwidth to the available WiMAX bandwidth and is performing the IP decapsulation and

reincapsulates the video streams. The adaptation, depending on the type of network is addressed to, has to be done in two steps: rate adaptation and content adaptation. B. Proposed System Model A functional block diagram of an IPTV application is illustrated in Fig. 4, while Fig. 5 shows IPTV protocol stack. A system model was proposed in [2] but in our implementation we intent to use a traffic classifier at the MAC layer, adaptive modulation and coding at the Physical layer, as well as power management algorithms at the radio transceiver, in order to provide an improved multimedia experience to the IPTV users.

Fig. 3 Delivering IPTV Services to both Fixed and Mobile Subscribers

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At the video head end, the video streams are encoded and compressed (e.g., MPEG2) from live and stored programs. The

classifier. The BS receives the downlink IP traffic which may contain data for different kind of services (internet data, voice, video, etc.). According to the type of service it is addressed to, this traffic is QoS classified as UGS, rtPS, nrtPS or BS. The video streaming uses rtPS. A traffic classifier has the role to sort the incoming traffic according to the priority and QoS demands. First it extracts the

Fig. 4 System Model for IPTV Applications

MPEG channels are encapsulated as real time transport protocol (RTP) and transported as a UDP or TCP streams to the IP layer. The IP packets are encapsulated into Ethernet frames and then sent over the network through the physical layer. The WiMAX BS receives this data and decapsulates them up the IP layer and re-encapsulates them into specific MAC and PHY PDUs. The physical layer performs FEC, symbol mapping and modulation while the radio transceiver transmits the resulted signals to the mobile nodes. Here, the video streams are sent to the STB or PC decoder and regenerated into video content. The MAC and Physical Layer together with the radio transceivers are the components where we will focus our

Fig. 6 MAC Layer QoS Support

Fig. 5 The IP Protocol Stack for IPTV transmission

attention at, with the remark that the MAC implementation is a key component because here is where the queuing and scheduling of service is done. The MAC layer implementation is also the one that will facilitate the QoS provisioning necessary for our system. 1) Medium Access Control (MAC) Layer WiMAX is a point-to-multipoint system, connection-oriented. The WiMAX MAC layer protocol is a Dynamic service editing protocol [4], with Add/Change/Delete functions, which allows a management of the message payload format. One of the biggest advantages is that it offers flexible QoS provisions and this major advantage is exploited in our proposal. Fig. 6 shows the proposed implementation of the MAC layer

header information from the IP packets and sends it to the connection management unit. Based on the header info, the connection management assigns a unique FlowID to each packet. The FlowID will contain information about the type of service and type of connection for each packet and will be assigned according to the QoS policy protocol stored in the QoS Database. For IPTV services, this protocol has to be designed by taking into account specific parameters as: Minimum/Maximum Delay, Minimum/Maximum Data Rate, Retransmission and Requests Policy, etc. The traffic classifier attaches the generated FlowID to the IP packets and the Scheduling/Queuing block will sort the IP traffic accordingly. In this case, the video IPTV stream has to have the maximum priority. In the end, the specific WiMAX MAC PDU will be generated and sent to the Physical layer. The same process has to be implemented in the reverse way. 2) Physical Layer (PHY) Fig. 7 shows the block diagram of our Physical Layer implementation. According to the WiMAX standard [4], at the Physical layer, the packets arriving from the MAC layer are first subject to Channel Coding and Modulation. The Channel Coding consists of randomization, forward error correction, coding (such as Reed Solomon and convolutional line coding) and interleaving. The Physical layer supports different modulation types (QAM, BPSK, and QPSK). In our design we propose an adapting modulation technique at optimal coding rates, in order to maximize the bandwidth efficiency with respect to quality. Following the modulation, the Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) transforms the signal from the frequency domain to the time domain, followed by time-domain processing (such as spectral shaping, interpolation). Finally, there is a frame construction block which adds preamble and cyclic prefix, followed by the Radio Interface (IF and RF interfaces). The reverse path is similar. It includes time/frequency synchronization, channel estimation, equalization,

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demodulation and decoding and it moves the signals from time

adaptive modulation and coding scheme, power management mechanism, and resource allocation algorithm to facilitate IPTV over WiMAX. REFERENCES
[1] [2] Maneesh Bakshi, VoIP / Multimedia over WiMAX (802.16), http://cse.wustl.edu/~jain/cse574-06/wimax_voip.htm Francis E. Retnasothie, M. Kemal Ozdemir, Tevfik Yucek, Hasari Celebi, Joseph Zhang, and Ranesh Muththaiah, Wireless IPTV over WiMAX: Challenges and Applications, IEEE Wamicon (invited paper), Clearwater, FL, December 2006 Junqiang Hu, Dayou Qian, Haijun Yang, Ting Wang, Steve Weinstein, Triple Play Services over a Converged Optical/Wireless Network, OFC/NFOEC Digest, 2006 IEEE Standard 802.16 Working Group, "IEEE Standard for Local and Metropolitan Area Networks part 16: Air Interface for Fixed Broadband Wireless Access Systems" IEEE, 2004. Application Usage Scenarios Using WiMAX Technology, December 2005, Prepared by Application Working Group WiMAX Forum Wan-Ki Park, Chang-Sic Choi, Youn-Kwae Jeong, Intark Han An Implementation of the Broadband Home Gateway supporting Multi-Channel IPTV Service , Consumer Electronics, 2006. ISCE '06. 2006 IEEE Tenth International Symposium Yongsun Ryu, Eunjin Ko, Hyuncul Kang, Gilheang Lee, YoungSun Kim The Web based SLA System for Customer Quality Assurance in Providing IPTV Services, Broadband Convergence Networks, 2006. BcN 2006, p. 1-10 Lev B. Sofman, Bill Krogfoss, Anshul Agrawal Dimensioning of Active Broadcast Channels in Access IPTV Network, Optical Fiber Communication Conference, 2006 and the 2006 National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference, OFC/NFOEC Digest, 2006 Denis Gallant Optical Network Foundation for Triple Play Services Roll-out, OFC/NFOEC Digest, 2006 Mark Abrams and Ariel Maislos Insights on Delivering an IP Triple Play over GE- PON and GPON , OFC/NFOEC Digest, 2006 Mohamed El-Sayed, Ying Hu, Samrat Kulkarni, Newman Wilson Access Transport Network for IPTV Video Distribution, OFC/NFOEC Digest, 2006 Junqiang Hu, Zhong Pan, Zuqing Zhu, Haijun Yang, Venkatesh Akella, S. J. B. Yoo First experimental demonstration of combined multicast and unicast video streaming over an optical-label switching network, OFC/NFOEC Digest, 2006 Wan-Ki Park, Sung-Il Nam, Chang-Sic Choi, Youn-Kwae Jeong and Kwang-Roh Park, An Implementation of FTTH based Home Gateway Supporting Various Services , IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, Volume: 52, Issue: 1, page: 110- 115 Sangjae Lee, Chunglae Cho, Intark Han Digital Home Division FTTH Residential Gateway and IP Tuner for IPTV Service, Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, 2006. CCNC 2006. 2006 3rd IEEE, Volume: 1, page 497- 501 Benjamin Alfonsi I Want My IPTV: Internet Protocol Television Predicted a Winner, Distributed Systems Online, IEEE, 2005, Volume: 6, Issue: 2 James 0. Farmer Wave7 Optics, Inc. Delivering Video, Voice and Data to Consumers via an All-Fiber Network, Optics Express, Vol. 13, Issue 8, pp. 2887-2891

[3] Fig. 7 PHY Layer Architecture

domain to frequency domain. The block diagram for the WiMAX BS transceiver is given in Fig. 8. It consists of digital and analog part. Here we intend to implement a power management algorithm that will tune the transceiver parameters (e.g., amplifier gain, power level, carrier frequency) in order to achieve the optimum quality of the signal. From the Physical layer, the digital signal with the I and Q components is first Digital Up-Converted. This signal is then

[4] [5] [6]

[7]

[8]

[9] [10] [11] Fig. 8 Radio Transceiver Diagram [12]

converted to the analog domain by the DAC while a two stage up converter (IF and RF) uploads the signal to the desired radio frequency. The resultant transmit signal is amplified by a Power Amplifier. The amplified signal is passed to the antenna through the switch or duplexing device, depending on the duplexing method (TDD or FDD). In the other way, the received signal is amplified using a low noise amplifier (LNA) down converted to the IF stage using the two-stage down converter (RF and IF). This signal is digitized and I/Q samples are downconverted and sent to the Radio interface. V. CONCLUSION IPTV enables users to have VoD services as well as to subscribe whichever broadcast channel of their choice anytime anywhere. With WiMAX offering high data rates to both mobile and fixed users with low cost and high quality, the implementation of IPTV over WiMAX become promising. In this paper, we have introduced IPTV, identified the challenges in implementing IPTV, and setup a framework for delivering IPTV over WiMAX. As a future work, we intend to design and develop specific

[13]

[14]

[15] [16]