Footnote:
In: Communications & Strategies, Special Issue, November 2008
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments April 7, 2009 erstellt
Description:
This paper intends to show the upcoming trends and challenges in the Ultrabroadband home networking (100 Mbps and beyond) and more specifically addresses the challenges of connecting the ever increasing number of devices at home to future ultrabroadband services. As far as the state-of-the-art is concerned, home networks access feed is about to benefit, on a world wide scale, from the powerful 100 Mbps FTTH technology. However, an enormous number of devices suffer from the difficulty to provide full coverage at home and a severe fragmentation of middleware protocols jeopardises their ability to smartly interconnect. Two severe bottlenecks are still to be popped-off: wireless connectivities, most beloved by the end user for the ease of installation and use, are about to be out of breath to challenge Gbps if they keep to operating in the RF domain, while new Eldorados such as Ultra Wide Band or Free Space Optics are already knocking at the door but with either regulatory or technical resistance. Next, the user would like to enjoy and choose services "a la carte" a mixture of services, which makes a significant increase of complexity in the provision of services. In the future, "home networking" will be referred to as "connected home" so that pervasive, technology- or device-agnostic services are clearly proposed to the user without any hassle or cumbersome http-like configuration of routers or PCs. The promised services will enrich their daily lives by addressing all market segments such as: Care and security (for the elderly), Entertainment and new communities and HD communications. This vision leads to research challenges needing to be addressed. Convergence of Gbps connectivities goes far beyond simply racing for the Gbps with the best technology, because it aims at making interoperate all existing and future connectivities in the same system. Heavy roadblocks such as standardised extenders, remote management, and generalised seamless handovers will be solved in the coming years. At a higher protocol level, middleware will need interoperability with common framework so that foundations of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) will be rock solid. This will enable Intelligence in the connected home so that, ultimately, the end user is no more aware of the devices themselves