QoS-enabled residential gateway architecture

As networking technologies penetrate wide varieties of devices for daily usage, home networks are becoming a reality. The bandwidth and always-on connectivity provided by the rapidly growing broadband technologies, such as cable and digital subscriber line (DSL), render home networking even more attractive. A residential gateway is a device that interconnects various home devices to one another as well as to the Internet. The home networks being deployed today are simple and inexpensive with the residential gateway providing only connectivity. As home networks evolve and become more widespread, emerging applications on home networks will demand additional features that require quality of service. We present an architecture of a next-generation QoS-enabled residential gateway. Such a residential gateway, in conjunction with the developments in QoS-enabled wireless LAN technologies, will usher in a new generation of home networks that are capable of supporting a wide range of applications.