A novel idea on supporting mobile IPTV services over mixed DVB-H and 3G networks

摘要

Mobile IPTV is one of the IPTV branches applied to small and handheld devices such as mobile phones, where users can access shared videos on IPTV servers by their mobile devices everywhere. Because of the availability of small-size mobile phones, mobile IPTV is going to be turned into a main part of hobbies and information gathering. This paper presents a novel concept for mixing 3G and DVB-H network to develop mobile IPTV. In this paper, we propose a framework to combine DVB-H and 3G cells in order to extend coverage area of mobile IPTV and increase penetration of mobile IPTV. By combining these two technologies, users leaving a 3G area and entering a DVB-H area (or vice versa) can continue watching their videos by vertical handover between 3G and DVB-H networks. Switching a video stream between DVB-H and 3G networks to reduce the usage fee and extend the coverage area is the main idea of this paper. In fact, this paper introduces a cheap and suitable solution for extending Mobile IPTV with available facilities in underdeveloped countries. Our performance evaluation shows the effectiveness of the proposed combination on improving the quality of service for mobile IPTV users.