Convergence architecture for home service communities

Abstract

Nowadays, home networks have integrated day to day life through the classical internet access and deliver numerous services to end users. This home entrance is a real opportunity for operators to deploy services directly between homes. However, one major issue is the interconnection between Home Networks (HN) which requires suitable architectures and efficient authentication mechanisms. In this paper, two network architectures were proposed to interconnect HNs in order to support home service delivery and then compared with the IMS as reference architecture. The first architecture was based on a centralized SIP solution and used HTTP digest for authentication purpose; while the second proposition consisted in a distributed architecture based on pure P2P and Identity based cryptography. The study of these two solutions has been undergone through the simulation of a simple photo sharing scenario. As a result, the centralized SIP solution can be relevant for an average number of users and the easiest way to deploy new services. The decentralized solution (pure P2P) can be deployed for small service communities and may be compliant to larger system with improved algorithms.