Third-party customization of residential Internet sharing using SDN

Today´s residential Internet service is bundled and shared by a multiplicity of household devices and members, causing several performance problems. Customizing broadband sharing to the needs and usage patterns of each individual house has hitherto been difficult for ISPs and home router vendors. In this paper we design, implement, and evaluate a system that allows a third-party to create new services by which subscribers can easily customize Internet sharing within their household. Our specific contributions are three-fold: (1) We develop an over-the-top architecture that enables residential Internet customization, and propose new APIs to facilitate service innovation. (2) We identify several use-cases where subscribers benefit from the customization, including: prioritizing quality-of-experience amongst family members; monitoring individual usage volumes in relation to the household quota; and filtering age-appropriate content for selected users. (3) We develop a fully-functional prototype of our system leveraging open-source SDN platforms, deploy it in selected households, and evaluate its usability and performance benefits to demonstrate feasibility and utility in the real world.