On the effectiveness of DVB-T for the support of IP-based services in heterogeneous wireless networks

Heterogeneous radio networks employ multiple different wireless access technologies, which act jointly towards providing enhanced network access and service provision, as well as exhibiting an increased potential in terms of: network coverage/availability, QoS guarantees, delivery cost and compliance with users' requirements. Such an environment can prove considerably beneficial for network and service providers, as well as the end (mobile) user. Taking into account that the need for broadband wireless access becomes all the more intense, especially in relation to multimedia services (e.g., video streaming), DVB-T (the terrestrial specification of the DVB family) appears as an attractive access technology to be investigated in the heterogeneous wireless context. In this direction, the paper employs a prototype heterogeneous radio platform where DVB-T acts as an alternative access network and plays a key role in absorbing high rate traffic from other wireless segments. The paper deals with operational scenarios that highlight the effectiveness of DVB-T for the support of IP-based services in heterogeneous wireless environments, investigates associated system and performance aspects, and provides quantitative results from experiments on the platform.