Support of mobile TV over an HSPA network

Abstract

This paper describes a quality of service (QoS) implementation in the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) to commercialize mobile television (TV) services with current High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) commercial devices, which do not support a streaming traffic class as defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). This implementation allows the mobile operators to offer a high quality of service for the end user in terms of reducing the need for re-buffering during the mobile TV session, while minimizing the impact of the service on the overall radio cell capacity. System level simulations relying on a Tier 1 operator use case have been generated to quantify the benefits streaming users experience due to this QoS implementation in the presence of background traffic in the same radio cell. The impact in terms of radio cell capacity is also evaluated. © 2011 Alcatel-Lucent.This can be achieved by modifying QoS parameters for an established radio access bearer (RAB), without impacting the user equipment, after the network detects a streaming data flow. The UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) can then adjust the scheduling policy to enforce the expected throughput of the streaming application in cases of congestion and bad radio propagation conditions.In this paper, we describe a QoS implementation for mobile TV applications based on the modification of parameters that do not impact the user equipment, which means that current High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) devices can support this type of application even if they are not able to support the 3GPP streaming QoS class. The benefits of such an implementation for both the end user experience and the network capacity are analyzed by simulations relying on a Tier 1 operator use case. IntroductionMany mobile network operators are more and more interested in offering streaming services to their customers, especially mobile television (TV) services, due to the revenues the services can generate. Providing a mobile TV service with a high end user experience as defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) normally requires the support of a streaming traffic class by the user device. It also requires the support of two Packet Data Protocol (PDP) contexts for the 3GPP streaming class. But most commercial devices neither support the streaming class nor support multiple PDP contexts. Moreover, offering a 3GPP streaming class requires handling the end-to-end quality of service (QoS), which is a complex undertaking. Those restrictions have led the industry to investigate alternative solutions that can provide a good user experience with the streaming applications by using the 3GPP interactive traffic class. We begin by describing how a streaming call is meant to be established in 3GPP, a method rarely supported by commercial user equipment (UE). Next, we describe the specifics of the implementation proposed by Alcatel-Lucent-a method which is supported by commercial UEs-focusing on the UTRAN, but also providing further references to possib...