Cost models for QoS-differentiated interconnecting and wholesale access services in future generation networks

Abstract

Currently, network operators and Internet service providers are offering "Triple Play" products integrating services with different Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. It is leading to Internet traffic with strong service integration under an all-IP-based broadband network platform. However, new multimedia service offers require individual QoS guarantees for each type of services. The interconnection between different providers necessitates the reconsideration of the actual cost schemes. Interconnection and wholesale access services (It is an extension of "wholesale network" definition, where Telco's physical network and equipment are "shared" to many independent Service Providers. If the incumbent offers broadband access services, the rest of the alternative providers have recourse to the incumbent's "wholesale access service". Bitstream service is the most important service of this type, actually regulated over DSL and cable networks.) appear to be a simple solution, but the consideration of QoS parameters requires an extension of the current network dimensioning methods based mainly on the average bandwidth demand from each user. This paper proposes a cost model which considers QoS parameters and, based on the "Total Element based Long Run Incremental Cost" (TELRIC) model, is applied to the wholesale access and interconnection paradigm. Three traffic engineering methods are considered and studied for network dimensioning. Hereby the aim is to guarantee the QoS of the different services: complete traffic segregation under virtual tunnels, complete traffic integration by over-engineering and partial traffic integration using a priority queuing scheme. The proposed method enables the development of a specific cost scheme based on a complete scenario considering different types of users. The variety of used IP applications suppose direct implications over different levels of interconnection, mainly at the low-level Metro access and the high-level edge node.