Optimizing the Delivery of Services Supported by Residential Gateways

The Residential Gateway (RGW) is a key device, located on the customer premises, that stands between the home network and the access network. It imposes a considerable cost for the NSP and constitutes a single point of failure for all the services offered to residential customers – such as Internet access, VoIP, IPTV and Video-on-Demand. As such, the RGW constitutes an ideal candidate for virtualization, potentially relieving the NSP from such problems while also providing benefits to end-users. This chapter discusses the rationale and proposes an architecture for a virtualized Residential Gateway (vRGW) that physically removes the RGW from the customer premises, moving it into the operator data center or other logical point-of-presence, as a virtualized entity. This solution potentially reduces deployment, maintenance and operation costs, whilst improving overall performance, flexibility, reliability and manageability – both for the access network infrastructure and for the services provided over this infrastructure.

Retransmission of Real-Time Audio and Video Streams through the Residential Gateway in the Home Networking

With the rapid development of computer and network technology, our everyday life is more and more influenced. In the information age it is an inevitable trend that consumer electronics will become more and more intelligentized and interconnected. Taking into account the characteristics of external network users’ access to a home networking, as well as the important role that the residential gateway plays in the interaction between external networks and home networking, this paper presents the idea of a unique access interface of the home networking. Furthermore, this paper designs and implements an IPv6-based UPnP real-time video and audio capture device, and the real-time audio/video stream captured is forwarded to external network users through the residential gateway. Other multimedia applications can be resolved in the same way.

The Central Forwarding Mechanism of Residential Gateway

Our home is becoming more and more intelligentized. In the home network, the residential gateway plays a key role in the data interchange between external networks and home network, this paper proposes an idea that the home network should guarantee a unique visiting interface. Furthermore, this paper designs and implements the central forwarding mechanism of the residential gateway, and exchanges between outer networks and home network must be through the residential gateway. This paper is of valuable reference for network researchers and engineers to be engaged in the further study on the home network.

Ubiquitous Communication Via Residential Gateways

This chapter focuses on the equipment in the home, providing broadband access to the users into the home, called residential gateway. The chapter shows how such a device evolves from a simple modem to an advanced gateway system that contributes to: • The access inside the home of any data on any compatible device • The ubiquity of access points for the broadband network • The ubiquity of media data in the home from remote devices • The communication of mobile handsets via the fixed network. The objective of this chapter is to give the reader a technical insight into the enabling mechanisms and technologies dealing with such functionalities. The text indicates particular technical solutions, but explanations are kept high-level in order to allow nontechnical readers to understand the basics and concepts of the solutions. A number of references show that the technical exposé is becoming a reality.