Application of Home Gateway viewed from IPTV

With the development of IPTV business in China, the bearer network has shifted from the original single service to the multi-service bearer. Similarly, for broadband users, previously only PC Internet terminal, the opening of IPTV business, business Terminal added a set-top box. Other business terminals, such as IP telephony, may also be added in the future. The use of multi-service terminals has directly promoted the application of home gateways in the home.

What is a home gateway

Simply put, a home gateway is a hub for connecting carrier networks and user home networks. From the physical form to be, the home gateway downstream must provide multiple interfaces to connect different business terminals. Because of the diversification of Operator access network interface, the home gateway needs to be able to support different upstream interfaces to follow up the change of broadband network.

In addition, the home gateway needs to be able to support multiple services, as well as business concurrency. As the core of business forwarding, we must ensure the smooth operation of different types of business at the same time and within the same network. Not because of the family watching IPTV, the Internet business is affected. That is, there is a QoS guarantee for the business.

From the operator's point of view, the home gateway is the downward extension of the access network, and the use of the home gateway can enhance the operator's fine management of the user's business, so that the operators can intensive the network resources and strengthen the monitoring and management ability of the network.

Status of multi-service terminal access in China

Domestic broadband access lines are mainly ADSL and LAN access. Before the IPTV business, the home broadband access device is the ADSL cat, Uplink ADSL port, downlink a LAN port. For most LAN access users, the ethernet cable in the household is connected directly to the PC terminal.

At present, the domestic IPTV business is still in the initial stage, multi-service terminal access methods are mainly two ways:

provides downlink PC interface on the set-top box

Some IPTV business system manufacturers provide a set-top box to provide such an interface, so that the PC through the set-top box access to broadband network. This way seems to be relatively simple to access, but because of the network features of the set-top box itself is weak, VLAN partitioning, QoS features are very weak, so the PC Internet business is likely to be mixed with IPTV business, not conducive to operator management of the business. In the long run, as a business terminal, set-top box is also difficult to integrate the functions of the home gateway well.

multi-terminal access through a home gateway

According to the type of broadband home network, the family gateway can be a multi-port ADSL cat, can also be a switch class device. Its main function is to provide multi-port convenience for multiple terminal access. In fact, in the initial application, for cost reasons, some operators use a multi-port ADSL cat can not be used to bind the port and PVC, also for LAN access directly with the hub, these devices are not on the access side to do business differentiation and identification, not conducive to the business of QoS assurance and refinement management.

Application requirements for home gateways

Requirements for networking:

Home Gateway is the core of home network, in addition to provide broadband uplink, more importantly for different types of business terminals to provide the corresponding interface, from wired to wireless, from low speed to high speed. Especially wireless, most of the home multi-service terminal location will not be together (such as TV and PC), for users, in order to carry out IPTV business in the home re-cabling is not acceptable, this factor is likely to affect the opening rate of IPTV business.

In addition, the home gateway also need to be able to solve problems such as multi-PC Internet, so also need to support NAT, Proxy and other functions.

Requirements for business identity and QoS:

The home gateway is the first network device of the business Terminal Access network, and its different access ports correspond to different services, without having to identify the business according to the traffic characteristics of the business. You can typically use different ports to configure different PVCs or VLANs for business identification. Similarly, the different services can be different QoS tag, in addition, each access port can be a two-way speed limit and other ways to control traffic, avoid bandwidth congestion in the access network phenomenon.

Remote Management requirements:

From the perspective of development, the home network carries a large number of telecommunications services, in order to ensure the end-to-end service quality of telecommunications services, telecommunications operators need to end-to-end communications involved in a number of devices to coordinate the unified management, which requires the home network equipment can be controlled and manageable. In the specific management of the way, you can use SNMP, TR069 and so on. Among them, TR-069 is one of the technical specifications developed by DSL forum, which is all called "CPE Wan Management Protocol". It defines a common framework and protocol for remote management of home gateways, which are used to centrally manage home gateways from the network side and are more suitable for remote management of home gateways.

However, in the near future, the number of IPTV users is relatively small, the operators to adopt remote management of the home gateway will cause business opening costs increased. Therefore, in the near future more suitable way is the home gateway all free from configuration, as with the current ADSL cat, connected to the network cable can be used, bad direct replacement can be.

Security Requirements for home gateways:

As a gateway for home devices to connect broadband networks, home gateways are responsible for protecting home network security, so gateways should have the ability to defend against attacks and intrusions.

the application stage of domestic home gateway

With the IPTV business at different stages of development in China, operators will have different requirements for the home gateway.

Initial infiltration phase:

At this time, less IPTV users, IPTV business model and profit model is not clear, at this time to low-cost rapid deployment of business as the main demand, so at this stage of the family gateway requirements are also low, it is possible to directly use the hub or a common multi-port cat access.

Rapid development phase:

At this stage, IPTV users grow rapidly, occupy more network resources, operators need to be able to fine-tune the IPTV business management, so it is necessary for home gateway to be able to conduct business identification and QoS tagging. In this phase, the management of the home gateway will appear in the previous two modes: 0 configuration Maintenance-free and remote management.