Admission region of triple-play services in wireless home networks

A heterogeneous wired and wireless network architecture is considered for home networks to support Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), voice, and data, the so-called triple-play services. To satisfy the quality of service (QoS) requirements for different traffic classes, class-based queueing (CBQ) is deployed at home gateways and routers. To estimate the network capacity and decide on an appropriate resource management scheme, we develop an analytical framework to quantify the maximum number of IPTV connections that can be supported with guaranteed QoS over wired and multi-hop wireless networks. We extend the fluid-flow model to capture both the burstiness of IPTV sources and the time-varying characteristics of multi-hop wireless paths. Heterogeneous traffic and CBQ are considered in the model. Simulation results over wired and multi-hop wireless paths are given which validate the analysis. The results presented provide important guidelines for the planning of future home networks for triple-play services. They also provide important insights into how to efficiently support heterogeneous traffic with stringent QoS requirements over wireless and wired networks. 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.