The main objective of the book is to present state-of-the-art research results and experience reports in the area of quality monitoring for customer experience management, addressing topics which are currently important, such as service-aware future Internet architecture for Quality of Experience (QoE) management on multimedia applications. In recent years, multimedia applications and services have experienced a sudden growth. Today, video display is not limited to the traditional areas of movies and television on TV sets, but these applications are accessed in different environments, with different devices and under different conditions. In addition, the continuous emergence of new services, along with increasing competition, is forcing network operators and service providers to focus all their efforts on customer satisfaction, although determining the QoE is not a trivial task. This book addresses the QoE for improving customer perception when using added value services offered by service providers, from evaluation to monitoring and other management processes.

Multimedia Quality of Experience (QoE) Current Status and Future Requirements Multimedia Quality of Experience (QoE): Current Status and Future Requirements discusses the current status of QoE (Quality of Experience) research, providing guidelines on QoE assessment and management practice. Moreover, it covers many different aspects of QoE research, including definitions, standardization (ITU, ETSI, IEEE, IETF), measurement, management, and architectures. In addition, the authors bring together contributions from recognized experts (worldwide) in the area of subjective and objective QoE video assessment. Discusses the current status of QoE research; reporting the latest advances from various standardization bodies Provides guidelines on QoE assessment and management practice Explores methods, means, and architectures of QoE Considers future requirements of QoE

We present queueing-based algorithms to calculate the bandwidth required for a video stream so that the three main Quality of Service constraints, i.e., end-to-end delay, jitter and packet loss, are ensured. Conversational and streaming video-based applications are becoming a major part of the everyday Internet usage. The quality of these applications (QoS), as experienced by the user, depends on three main metrics of the underlying network, namely, end-to-end delay, jitter and packet loss. These metrics are, in turn, directly related to the capacity of the links that the video traffic traverses from its source to destination. The main problem that this book addresses is how much bandwidth we should allocate on the path from source to destination of a video traffic flow such that the end-to-end delay, jitter and packet loss of the video packets are within some expected required bounds.

This book presents LTE evolution towards 5G mobile communication and the emergence of new requirements for MBB, MTC and LLC services. As LTE technologies evolve, LTE Advanced Pro dramatically increases cell capacity and user data rates for the MBB unicast service. Such requirements are obtained using full-dimension MIMO, carrier aggregation (on either licensed or unlicensed frequency bands) and dual connectivity. To improve the efficiency of same-content delivery to multiple users, 3GPP proposes a group communications service over LTE and defines mission critical push-to-talk (MCPTT) for dedicated public safety services. Complementary low-cost and low-power modems with enhanced coverage and massive connectivity are emerging. Thus, this book also discusses the need for LTE to support low-rate transmission and high-latency communication for MTC services.

LTE (Long Term Evolution) is commonly marketed as 4G. LTE and LTE Advanced have been recognized by ITU-R and ITU-T (International Telecommunications Union – Telecommunications) as the principal solution for the future mobile communication networks standards. They are thus the framework of what the marketing calls 4G and possibly also 5G. This book describes various aspects of LTE as well as the change of paradigm, which it is bringing to mobile communications, focusing on LTE standards and architecture, OFDMA, the Full IP Core Network and LTE security.

This book presents the architecture of two networks that make up the backbone of the telephone service VoLTE and video service ViLTE. The 4G mobile network makes it possible to construct bearers through which IP packets, containing either telephone signals (SIP, SDP) or voice or video media (RTP stream), are transported. The IMS network performs the processing of the telephone signal to provide VoLTE and ViLTE services, including call routing and the provision of additional services. Different procedures are described: the set-up and termination of a session, interconnection with third-party networks, roaming and intra-system handover. The inter-system handover PS-CS is a special case that occurs when the mobile loses 4G network coverage over the course of a session. The e-SRVCC mechanism enables continuity of the service during the switch of the telephone communication to the 2G or 3G networks. The SMS service for short messages, which is a special telephone service in itself, is provided by two structures, one relying on the IMS network, and a second on the CSFB functionality.

In an increasingly interconnected world, "Communication Networks Economy" provides the rational understanding necessary to provide universal access to communication means in an efficient way. This book presents the principal elements of the economics of a network as it stands today, taking into account experiences of technicians in the field. The author gives a simplified picture of the current situation in terms of structures and architecture of a network, bearing in mind the necessary quality of service and the profitability of investments, accompanied by references to recent economic works. An overview is given on the general themes of regulation and tariff principles, and the relations between supply and demand, from the perspectives of professional and residential users and network operators. Different aspects of the present situations of networks and the incidence of the Internet on the economy are also presented. In conclusion, the reader will obtain an overview of the most significant issues likely to influence the economics of communications networks as they are today.

The adoption of smartphones has had as a corollary the use of services that require streaming, such as video streaming, which is a constraint for the 4G mobile network. The integration of the network of Wi-Fi hotspots deployed by the operators adds capacity to the 4G mobile network. The use of Wi-Fi technology in carrier networks is the result of developments coordinated by the IEEE, WFA and WBA standardization bodies. For its part, the 3GPP standardization body has been working to integrate Wi-Fi technology into the 4G mobile network. The first part of this book presents the characteristics of the Wi-Fi radio interface. The different IEEE 802.11b / g / n / ac physical layers characterize the implementation in the 2.4 GHz ISM frequency bands and U- NII at 5 GHz. The MAC layer defines a number of media access procedures such as scanning, associating, or transferring data. The second part of this book deals with the architecture of the 4G network based on the Wi-Fi interface. This architecture defines several models corresponding, on the one hand, to Wi-Fi access controlled or not, On the other hand, to a handover controlled by the network or by the mobile. The integration of Wi-Fi technology resulted in a redefinition of attachment and session set-up procedures. Smartphones have the ability to activate simultaneously the two radio interfaces, LTE and Wi-Fi, which allows to direct certain services to one and / or the other of the interfaces. The ANDSF and HotSpot 2.0 functions provide the mobile with rules for network selection and traffic control to determine which traffic is to be routed to what type of interface.

Wireless networks represent an inexpensive and convenient way to connect to the Internet. However, despite their applications across several technologies, one challenge still remains: to understand the behavior of wireless sensor networks and assess their performance in large-scale scenarios. When a large number of network nodes need to interact, developing suitable analytical models is essential to ensure the appropriate coverage and throughput of these networks and to enhance user mobility. This is intrinsically difficult due to the size and number of different network nodes and users. This book highlights some examples which show how this problem can be overcome with the use of different techniques. An intensive parameter analysis shows the reader how to the exploit analytical models for an effective development and management of different types of wireless networks.

This book reviews the concept of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) by studying the SDN architecture. It provides a detailed analysis of state-of-the-art distributed SDN controller platforms by assessing their advantages and drawbacks and classifying them in novel ways according to various criteria. Additionally, a thorough examination of the major challenges of existing distributed SDN controllers is provided along with insights into emerging and future trends in that area. Decentralization challenges in large-scale networks are tackled using three novel approaches, applied to the SDN control plane presented in the book. The first approach addresses the SDN controller placement optimization problem in large-scale IoT-like networks by proposing novel scalability and reliability aware controller placement strategies. The second and third approaches tackle the knowledge sharing problem between the distributed controllers by suggesting adaptive multilevel consistency models following the concept of continuous Quorum-based consistency. These approaches have been validated using different SDN applications, developed from real-world SDN controllers.