Differentiated service delivery in cooperative IP-based broadcast and mobile telecommunications networks

The evolution of wireless systems has led recently to the deployment of cooperative network infrastructures where networks based on different technologies cooperate together to offer innovative services which the networks individually could not offer. Cooperative network infrastructures are hybrid systems. Examples of hybrid systems are already in use in areas as diverse as power systems and locomotion systems. It is very important to apply efficient system management techniques to hybrid systems that produce advantageous business case scenarios for each participating system and efficient use of the available resources. In this paper, scenarios are investigated where cooperation between an integrated project (IP)-based broadcast network and an IP-based mobile telecommunications network has the potential to allow services to be provided to mobile users which would not be economical to offer over either an IP-based broadcast network or an IP-based mobile telecommunications network alone. The paper presents a novel technique for determining which network to use to deliver such services at a given point in time. The application of this technique in appropriate scenarios has the potential to generate additional income for both the IP-based broadcast network operator and the IP-based mobile telecommunications network operator in an infrastructure where the operators cooperate to offer innovative services. The paper explains the construction of utility functions for cooperative IP-based broadcast and mobile telecommunications networks. These utility functions are then used to provide results that enable the efficiency of the management of the network to be assessed in terms of the utility volume generated by the innovative services provided.