Bandwidth usage management for HbbTV streaming services based on user behavior

Abstract

Streaming services have became one of the most efficient content delivery mechanism. From offering original content such as movies, series and product marketing, streaming services have a wide spectrum of applicability and gained an increased interest from both home users and industry. With this new preferred method for delivering visual media to viewers, the TV industry introduced the HbbTV (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband Television), a global initiative which harmonizes the broadband and broadcast delivery of various services (including streaming services) via a single device (connected TV, set top box). This step revived the TV industry and increased consumers QoE (Quality of Experience) by ensuring access to both broadcasted and streamed media on their TV set. However, more devices able to access streaming services means more bandwidth consumption which, if not handled properly, may lead to a drastic decrease of QoS (Quality of Service) and QoE or even to the impossibility of delivering the service. In this paper we present a bandwidth usage management solution designed to reduce the bandwidth allocated for the HbbTV streaming services by monitoring the end user's position. A first architectural design and its hardware implementation has been developed to demonstrate that the proposed solution can be deployed in a real world environment. A first set of semi-automated tests have been conducted using the developed architecture in order to highlight the benefits the proposed solution.