This article summarizes the work carried out within the ACTS project INSIGNIA, which is targeted at the provision of interactive multimedia services through IN and B-ISDN integration The basic concepts regarding the integrated approach are discussed with emphasis on the functional architecture This discussion is followed by a presentation of IN multimedia services which were created based on these principles An overview of the real-life trials which were conducted on a pan-European basis in order to evaluate the INSIGNIA services is also given The results of this evaluation are examined from a variety of viewpoints, including functional architecture, user and network equipment, service logic programs and applications, as well as user acceptance and network performance

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INSIGNIA: a pan European trial for the intelligent broadband network architecture

This article analyzes a possible path for the evolution of telecommunication networks toward open distributed architectures like the TINA-C architecture. The results of a research project called IBIS carried out within the CoRiTeL Laboratory are presented. The IBIS project starts from the activities of the ACTS project INSIGNIA, which has proposed and demonstrated an architecture for the integration of the intelligent network concept over B-ISDN platforms (the so-called intelligent broadband network, IBN). In the IBIS approach, TINA service components replace the traditional IN service logic, providing the intelligence needed to control broadband services in a very flexible and open environment. The handling of the transport connections is performed in a more traditional way, exploiting the capability offered by the IBN. This article focuses on how the TINA and IBN paradigms can profitably interact, providing the intelligence to support advanced multimedia services.

IBIS: a testbed for the evolution of intelligent broadband networks toward TINA

In this paper, we report on the results of performance measurements for an integrated B-ISDN/intelligent network signaling network. The specification, implementation and realization as well as the performance measurements are all part of a European project named INSIGNIA. The results reported in this paper pertain to the signaling system built in the second trial of the project and pertain to one of the demonstrated services: the interactive multimedia retrieval service. In the performance analysis, the results are presented with different 'perspectives', each serving a different purpose. For instance, the 'message processing' perspective which helps implementers to optimize the systems and provides parameter values for performance modeling. The 'service procedure' perspective takes a more service oriented view which helps in evaluating the service and gives a clear view of the contribution of each physical entity involved in the provisioning of the service.

Signaling performance measurements of an interactive multi-media retrieval service in a broadband intelligent network

The introduction of advanced multimedia services in ATM based B-ISDN networks requires a new generation of Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), e.g. workstations, for interactive user dialogue in a multimedia service provisioning environment. One of the most attractive services to be offered in the future is Broadband Video Conferencing (B-VC) where audio, video and other media can be exchanged in real time among a group of users in two or more locations in the network.

Broadband Video Conference Customer Premises Equipment

We present an architectural approach for the creation of a broadband intelligent peripheral which can be used in an integrated B-ISDN/IN network. The architecture allows for both extensibility and scalability. Extensibility is given by the possibility to add new services and remove old ones and by the provision of a service implementation framework. The architecture is scalable because it allows us to distribute the functional entities onto different nodes. The presented architecture has been implemented and successfully used for the provision of two IMR services (interactive multimedia retrieval) and broadband videoconference service in the ACTS INSIGNIA project.

Design and implementation of an intelligent peripheral for broadband multimedia applications

The ATM technology offers the possibility to develop a broadband infrastructure (B-ISDN) which can be conveniently used for the delivery of multimedia services to the customer premises. Key points in exploiting the intrinsic flexibility of ATM are the provision of an adequate signalling system, by which users are assigned on-demand connections, and of a well designed infrastructure for service control, which helps in adding new services at a low cost. This paper deals with the approach considered in the ACTS-INSIGNIA project about the topic of integrating B-ISDN signalling with IN features. An overview of the INSIGNIA project can be found in [ProjDesc].

F. J. Herrera

Papers

A Transnational IN/B-ISDN Integrated Network for the Provision of Multimedia Services