Towards IPTV service discovery and selection in an IMS environment

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a telecommunication middleware architecture that behaves as a docking station for a wide range of multimedia services. Several so-called killer applications have been envisioned for this platform such as multimedia group communications and location based services (LBS), but one of the most common business cases for IMS remains IPTV (Internet Protocol TV). Several IMS standards development bodies and non-IMS players have contributed knowledge to the topic of IPTV, and the mechanisms needed to support various IPTV services are well understood. In addition, there are examples of researchers who have implemented IPTV services in their network testbeds. However, many of them do not make use of the full power of the specifications which describe the mechanisms of service discovery and service selection. These processes define support for customer device configuration, service personalisation and service selection in a multi-service provider ecosystem. This position paper proposes solutions to some of the open questions in this area and provides an architecture for a testbed that properly supports service discovery and selection. An initial implementation addressing the topic of auto-configuration of IMS terminals for service discovery is also presented.