The concept of the connected home, as defined by bodies such as the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), is built on a set of interoperability standards known as Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), that guarantees DLNA-certified devices can talk to one another, regardless of brand.

Currently, there are hundreds of millions of connected devices in use, half of which are fixed, such as TV screens and DVD players, and the rest portable, such as mobile phones and MP3 players. According to many industry analysts, the connected-device market is expected to comprise billions of networked devices in just a few years.

However, some vital issues still need to be resolved before a true connected-home experience is in place. Of these remote access is key, making a multitude of home-based services accessible anywhere, anytime, while living up to the end-user’s expectations for security and quality of service (QoS).

The Ericsson Connected Home solution addresses these issues. It enables secure remote access with telecom-grade performance. It builds on the IMS standard for user authentication and authorization, for routing of remote access control messages, and for negotiating end-to-end QoS. Additionally, the architecture is fully compliant with the consumer equipment industry’s standards for media-sharing services.

The core element in the solution architecture is the Home IMS Gateway (HIGA), which is currently being standardized in the Home Gateway Initiative (HGI) and ETSI TISPAN.

HIGA serves both as a termination point for IMS signaling from the operator backend and as a UPnP peer in the home network. By using HIGA for remote access, operators can deliver trusted connections while maintaining control over the managed network.

Assume that you are away from home, carrying your mobile phone with you, and want to get hold of music, pictures and videos stored in your Network Associated Storage (NAS). With the HGI architecture, you can contact your home through a remote-access client in your mobile phone, which communicates with your home-based HIGA. Once HIGA has allowed access to your home, the DLNA protocol plane takes over, granting you access to the media available, just as if you were at home. Together, the Telco-managed IMS network and the HIGA ensure that only you, and others authorized, can access your home NAS.

Content access, as described above, is just one example of how IMS and DLNA can inter-work in a remote access scenario for the connected home. A range of other use cases can be supported in a similar way, such as IPTV consumption, multimedia communication, and surveillance and automation services.

The first release of the Ericsson HIGA is scheduled for Q2 2009. The most important features of this release are support of Multimedia Telephony, Open IPTV, and several remote access scenarios for media sharing, such as mobile-to-home and home-to-home.

Ericsson also plans to release, as an extension to the Service Development Studio (SDS), high-level application programming interfaces (APIs), making all IP-enabled connected home devices accessible for software designers. As well as traditional segments, such as gaming, music and content accessibility, these APIs will support the development of a range of home-management services in areas such as surveillance, appliance control, utility control, and admittance control. The first of these APIs are scheduled for release in 2010.

By Benny Ritzén

Virtually at home: High-performance access to personal media  

Connected home