Interactive Services Protocol Standardisation for HFC and LMDS Networks: A Review

The HFC cable networks, which have been used so far extensively for broadcast TV application, can be adapted to a cost-effective introduction of interactive services to the subscriber. In addition mixed LMDS/CATV architectures become price competitive. — The paper reviews and explains the particular issues that must be addressed, and gives state of the art solutions. — It is organised in the following manner: • Interactive applications are defined, as well as their corresponding traffic model and quality of service requirement; • Details of the network architecture are provided and the corresponding network capacity and traffic throughout are derived; • A brief description of the channel models for HFC return path and LMDS is given, according both to system calculation and measurement results performed in several networks and countries; • The status of current standardisation work is given for DVB, DAVIC, ETSI, with a particular focus on the common standards for HFC and LMDS. The details of this latter ETSI standards, based on DVB-RC and DAVIC work, are described. • A rough cost analysis is performed and introduction scenarios are reviewed; • A complete interactive system description is provided with the details concerning both the headend and subscriber products.

Published

1999-07

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/M001181

ISBN

978-1-61482-948-5