Sábado, 22 Mayo 2010

Researchers at the University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) have developed a configuration that improve the functioning of communications networks and households would be much more versatile, to facilitate and streamline the functions they perform.

Communication networks of households are developing so rapidly that it is necessary to consider some changes in order to benefit from these new services come and meet the bandwidth they require. To this end, a group of researchers from the UC3M has submitted a new proposal of architecture or residential gateway RGW (Residential Gateway), which is the equipment that connects a residential communications network access network from any provider.

This work was recently published in the journal Computer Networks is a pioneer in its field, according to its authors. "Other research focuses on defining what functions should have a residential gateway, while we are dedicated to providing and how to implement flexible," says one of its authors, Jaime García Reinoso, Professor, Department of Telematics Engineering of the University of Madrid .

Households in permanent evolution
Households are constantly evolving: they are no longer rare to have two or more computers connected to the Internet and is expected within a few years, all communication is done from home using the IP protocol, provides the expert. That is, the telephone, radio, TV and any device that needs to communicate with another, will be connected using the Internet infrastructure.

"This requires a team to coordinate the rest to get the best possible performance and guarantee the performance required for users to enjoy an excellent quality of its services and the RGW that we raised in our article is designed for that purpose and at the same time releases cumbersome to users of configurations, and which is designed to perform all its functions independently and effectively, "said the professor.

If we think of an ADSL router, which is one of the teams used in homes to access services such as Internet or IP television, with RGW can turn this router into an apparatus much more 'intelligent' and versatile In order to give more and better services for users, researchers clarified.

A RGW may be considered the focal point of a home communication: all communication into or out of the house will go through it, so you can schedule events depending on the tastes of their owners. "Consider a scenario is not very far - said Professor Garcia Reinoso -. A friend invites us to see a movie at home in your new HDTV.

When we got home we see that while the TV is high definition, the contract you have with your television provider IP-TV is only for standard quality. As we do have hired high-definition television, we introduce our data and the RGW is automatically configured to receive the signal in the highest definition. "

Today, Internet has several drawbacks and one of the most important is its lack of quality of service: all applications are equal in the face of their distribution, which decreases the quality perceived by end users. "For example - the researchers say - when we make a voice call or video conferencing over IP and time we have enabled downloading a file, the quality is very bad in some cases."

There are several agencies working in what are called Next Generation Networks or NGN (Next Generation Networks). These NGNs focus on the quality of service to give users the best quality experience possible. All this may be exploited by smart homes, which we call the new generation, as it opens a new range of possibilities for new services providers.

Today, internet has several drawbacks and one of the most important is its lack of quality of service: all applications are equal in the face of their distribution, which decreases the quality perceived by end users. "For example - the researchers say - when we make a voice call or video conferencing over IP, yet we have selected to download any file, the quality is very bad in some cases."

The new NGN
Various bodies are working on technology that is called the Next Generation Networks or NGN (Next Generation Networks). These NGNs focus on the quality of service to give users the best quality experience possible. All this may be exploited by smart homes, which we call the new generation, as it opens a new range of possibilities for new services providers.

Another example. We are in our home watching IPTV, where we noticed an unusual noise at the door. We set the emergency number 112 in our IP phone. In a normal residential router could not take the call and that television would saturate the downstream access, but as the RGW is a module that detects emergency calls will automatically decrease the picture quality of television signal in order to permit the emergency call.

"None of this would be possible with the equipment we currently have in our homes and the most interesting thing is that any type of property today could benefit from these advances, simply placing a RGW as we describe in our article because they are designed to use the advantages that NGNs will bring. "

This gateway is a hardware that the user could install at home and the cost in mass production, could range around 100-120 euros, according to these experts predict.

More information:
Jaime García Reinoso, Iván Vidal, Fco. Valera y Arturo Azcorra, "Zero config residential gateway experiences for next generation smart homes", Computer Networks, 53 (18): 2967-2984 - 24 diciembre de 2009 ISSN: 1389-1286