An LG Electronics Company
Role of IPTV Standards in Achieving Quality of Service
Rich ChernockTelecom 2008Las Vegas, NV April 16, 2008
Page 2An LG Electronics Company
IPTV Basics
� IPTV = Delivery of TV services over IP network
� Telco answer to cable inroads into telephone business
� Enabled by very high bandwidth broadband facilities
� Worldwide deployment status:
� 2005 – between 2.0 and 3.2 million subscribers
� 2006 – between 3.6 and 6.2 million subscribers
� 2007 – between 10.8 and 15.0 million subscribers projected
� One estimate of actual for 2007: 14.2 million
� 2010 – between 48.8 and 63.1 million subscribers projected
� Current deployments use proprietary components(comprehensive standards in development)
Page 3An LG Electronics Company
IPTV
Consumer
IPTV Network Provider (NP)
IPTV
Service
Provider
(SP)
IPTV
Content
Provider
(CP)
IPTV System Architecture – Very High Level View
Operations Support Systems (OSS)Business Support Systems (BSS)
Page 4An LG Electronics Company
IPTV System Architecture – ATIS-IIF View
Page 5An LG Electronics Company
IPTV Standards: What Are They Good For?
� Interoperable retail receivers
� Reduced capital cost for IPTV service providers
� Convenience and lower cost for consumers
� Greater choice of services for consumers
� Interoperable infrastructure components
� Reduced cost for IPTV service providers
� Interoperable quality monitoring equipment(due to stream structure standards & monitoring RPs)
� Lower cost monitoring equipment
� More effective monitoring
Page 6An LG Electronics Company
Worldwide IPTV Standards Efforts
� ATIS-IIF (Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions – IPTV Interoperability Forum)
� Established June 2005
� Mission: Comprehensive standards for IPTV, focus on US
� ITU-T (International Telecommunications Union) IPTV Focus Group
� Established April 2006
� Mission: Coordinating & promoting global IPTV standards
� Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB)
� European DTV standards group, expanding recently into IPTV
� TTA (Korea), CCSA (China), ARIB (Japan)
Page 7An LG Electronics Company
ATIS-IIF Process
� Work is done by “committees”
� Issues are identified for each committee to work on
� Members of the committee submit contributions
� “Working text” is generated for each issue, and continuously revised as new contributions are discussed and accepted (usually after modification)
� When working text is considered complete, it moves into “initial closure” – available for industry comments
� After considering comments, document moves into “final closure” (publication)
Page 8An LG Electronics Company
ATIS-IIF Organizational Structure
� Five “committee”
� Architecture –formed Sep 2005
� Digital Rights Management (DRM) – formed Sep 2005
� Quality of Service Measurement (QoSM) – formed Sep 2005
� Testing and Interoperability (T&I) – formed Dec 2006
� Metadata & Transaction Data (MTD) – formed Jan 2007
� Each committee is working on one or more “issues”
Page 9An LG Electronics Company
ATIS-IIF QoSM Committee
� Completed Documents
� IPTV QoS Framework (Dec 2006)
� QoS Metrics for Linear Broadcast (August 2007)
� QoS Metrics for Public Services (January 2008)
� Currently Active Issues
� Quality of Experience Model for Linear Broadcast
� QoS Metrics for Regulatory Areas
� QoS Metrics for Broadcast Advertising
� QoS Metrics for Video on Demand
� Fault Modes for IPTV
Page 10An LG Electronics Company
Quality – A 50,000 Foot View
� What matters most to a customer?
� Being able to watch their preferred show/movie without glitches
�Customers don’t/shouldn’t care about MPEG, IP, RTP, QAM…
� To maintain customer satisfaction, the goal is to make this so
� The ability to monitor the entire distribution system is crucial
�End-to-end service assurance
Page 11An LG Electronics Company
� Terrestrial & Cable
� ATSC & SCTE standards specify broadcast stream structure
� ATSC & SCTE have detailed Recommended Practice for Validation
� ATSC A/78 & SCTE 142
� Emphasis on error severity
� Widely available, low-cost, effective broadcast monitors
� Example:
Triveni Digital StreamScope™
� IPTV
� Quality monitoring to date is more ad hoc, less effective
� Work is currently underway in ATIS to change this
� QOS metrics/measurements standards available for Linear TV, EAS
Quality Monitoring: Terrestrial/Cable vs. IPTV
Page 12An LG Electronics Company
IPTV distribution system
� Very complex system
� Considerably different requirements than voice / data
� All functional blocks that touch flows can introduce impairments at the transport level
� Transport impairments often result in QOE hit
� Traditional “QOS” metrics (packet loss & latency) may show problems
� Often root cause is deeper in the transport
� Not all IP packets are created equal!
� Can be categorized – with different metrics appropriate for each category
Page 13An LG Electronics Company
Quality impairments w/transport causes
� Lip Synch
� Tiling – aka Pixelization
� Channel loss
� Video w/o Audio
� Audio w/o Video
� Jerkiness
� Freezes
� Audio glitches
� � Root causes reflected by higher level symptoms
Page 14An LG Electronics Company
Categories – KISS principle
� Origination of digital content
� Digital Turnaround, Encoder/Mux, Video Server
� Is the transport correctly formed at origination?
� Manipulation of digital content
� Groomers, Rate Shapers, Splicers
� Have the modifications caused transport level impairments?
� Transport of digital content
� Core networks, routers, switches
� Have the network elements caused significant transport problems
� Last mile
� DSLAM, QAM modulator
� Are compliant streams being delivered to viewers?
Page 15An LG Electronics Company
Highest monitoring priorities
� Video/Audio Quality
� Need for in-depth transport monitoring wherever contents are modified
� Encoding, Muxing, Rate Shaping, Insertion, QAM …
� Depth of monitoring equivalent to SCTE 142/ATSC A/78 is necessary
� Non-video components also important
� EAS messages
� Splice Messages
� Topology and flows
� Network topology: Inventory and real-time status
� Flow characteristics: Unicast and multicast flow paths, latency and losses
� Essential for localization and root-cause
� Need to be Transient aware
� Equipment Health
� Common information elements for assessing failures
Page 16An LG Electronics Company
Summary
� Standards are good!
� IPTV has the same monitoring needs as for Broadcast, Cable and DTH systems
� Monitoring for QOE problems requires looking at transport and network issues
� Rapid detection/localization/repair of issues requires the ability to comprehensively monitor transport metrics
� Monitoring strategies exist that allow cost-effective localization of problems