IPTV Over ICN

TL;DR

This paper presents a hybrid IP-over-ICN architecture that enhances IPTV multicast services by combining ICN's native multicast support with existing IP infrastructure, demonstrated through a successful real-world trial.

Contribution

It introduces the POINT hybrid architecture enabling IP-based IPTV over ICN without requiring network-wide changes, and validates its effectiveness through a real network trial.

Findings

POINT prototype improved IPTV service resilience

Matched or exceeded IP-based IPTV performance

Demonstrated practical deployment in production network

Abstract

The efficient provision of IPTV services requires support for IP multicasting and IGMP snooping, limiting such services to single operator networks. Information-Centric Networking (ICN), with its native support for multicast seems ideal for such services, but it requires operators and users to overhaul their networks and applications. The POINT project has proposed a hybrid, IP-over-ICN, architecture, preserving IP devices and applications at the edge, but interconnecting them via an SDN-based ICN core. This allows individual operators to exploit the benefits of ICN, without expecting the rest of the Internet to change. In this paper, we first outline the POINT approach and show how it can handle multicast-based IPTV services in a more efficient and resilient manner than IP. We then describe a successful trial of the POINT prototype in a production network, where real users tested actual IPTV services over both IP and POINT under regular and exceptional conditions. Results from the trial show that the POINT prototype matched or improved upon the services offered via plain IP.