DiffServ quality of service support for multimedia applications in broadband access networks

QoS support in broadband access network is indispensable because QoS-sensitive realtime multimedia applications such as voice of IP, teleconferencing, IP TV and audio/video streaming are currently rapidly deployed in broadband access networks. Since broadband access networks are already widely deployed in the world, there are several important consideration factors when supporting DiffServ in broadband access networks. They are backward compatibility with DiffServ-unaware legacy systems, consistency with existing pricing infrastructure, effective QoS support for various applications, and so on. In this paper, we propose several candidate models to support DiffServ QoS in broadband access network environment. The proposed DiffServ models are divided into static and dynamic models. The static DiffServ models include Flat DiffServ providing per-subscriber DiffServ QoS and Structured DiffServ providing both per-service and per-subscriber DiffServ QoS. The dynamic DiffServ models include Direct DiffServ for peer to peer multimedia applications and Indirect DiffServ for applications of service providers.