ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013

Information technology — Future Network — Problem statement and requirements — Part 6: Media transport

ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013 describes the problem statement and requirements for the Future Network in the perspective of media transport. ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013 specifies: detailed description of the media transport requirements in the Future Network; identification and definition of services, basic and media services, which will fit the requirements for communications over heterogeneous environments supporting various user preferences, for any kind of media content, either time-dependent or time-independent; requirements and functionalities of Media Aware Network Elements, which are intended to be nodes in the network to provide seamless media experiences to users.

Technologies de l'information — Réseaux du futur — Énoncé du problème et exigences — Partie 6: Transport des médias

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 08-Apr-2013
• ICS: 35.100.30 - Network layer
• Technical Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6 - Telecommunications and information exchange between systems
• Drafting Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6 - Telecommunications and information exchange between systems
• Current Stage: 6060 - International Standard published
• Due Date: 11-Oct-2013
• Completion Date: 09-Apr-2013

Standards Content (Sample)

TECHNICAL ISO/IEC
REPORT TR
29181-6
First edition
2013-04-15


Information technology — Future
Network — Problem statement and
requirements —
Part 6:
Media transport
Technologies de l'information — Réseaux du futur — Énoncé du
problème et exigences —
Partie 6: Transport des médias




Reference number
ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013(E)
©
ISO/IEC 2013

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ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013(E)

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©  ISO/IEC 2013
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ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013(E)
Contents Page
Foreword . iv
Introduction . v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Symbols (and abbreviated terms) . 4
5 Overview . 5
5.1 Networks evolving to support of media . 5
5.2 User demand for media-based services . 6
6 General concept of FN media transport . 7
6.1 Support of connection-oriented and connection-less model . 8
6.2 Classification of basic services and composite service . 8
6.3 Deployment of MANE (Media Aware Network Element) in the network . 9
6.4 Content delivery networking . 10
7 Problem statement . 10
7.1 Protocol overhead and useless information . 10
7.2 Limitation of Layered Coding . 11
7.3 No media-awareness . 11
7.4 No information exchange between protocol stacks (layered network stack) . 11
7.5 Support for new types of media . 11
7.6 Merging of current solutions in supporting media transport . 12
7.7 Contents are left to the end-system . 12
8 Requirements for media transport in Future Network . 12
8.1 General requirements . 12
8.2 Requirements related to functionality of MANE . 14
8.3 Requirements related to media delivery and network . 14
Annex A (informative) Use cases for media transport . 16
A.1 HD Multiparty videoconference . 16
A.1.1 Current Solution . 16
A.1.2 Future Network Solution . 16
A.2 Web browsing . 17
A.2.1 Current Solution . 17
A.2.2 Future Network Solution . 18
A.3 Media Aware Network Element . 18
A.3.1 Content-aware based congestion control . 18
A.3.2 Decision-making . 19
A.3.3 Seamless mobility . 20
Annex B (informative) Related standardization and research activities . 22
B.1 MMT (MPEG Media Transport) . 22
B.2 SMART of Ambient Network . 23
B.3 MEDIEVAL (MultimEDia transport for mobIlE Video AppLications) . 24
B.4 CDNi (Content Delivery Network Interconnection) . 25
B.5 ALICANTE architecture . 26
Bibliography . 29

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ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013(E)
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are members of
ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees
established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical activity. ISO and IEC
technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international organizations, governmental
and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the work. In the field of information
technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee, ISO/IEC JTC 1.
International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.
The main task of the joint technical committee is to prepare International Standards. Draft International
Standards adopted by the joint technical committee are circulated to national bodies for voting. Publication as
an International Standard requires approval by at least 75 % of the national bodies casting a vote.
In exceptional circumstances, when the joint technical committee has collected data of a different kind from
that which is normally published as an International Standard (“state of the art”, for example), it may decide to
publish a Technical Report. A Technical Report is entirely informative in nature and shall be subject to review
every five years in the same manner as an International Standard.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent
rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
ISO/IEC TR 29181-6 was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology,
Subcommittee SC 6, Telecommunications and information exchange between systems.
ISO/IEC TR 29181 consists of the following parts, under the general title Information technology — Future
Network — Problem statement and requirements:
 Part 1: Overall aspects
 Part 3: Switching and routing
 Part 4: Mobility
 Part 6: Media transport
 Part 7: Service composition
The following parts are under preparation:
 Part 2: Naming and addressing
 Part 5: Security

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ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013(E)
Introduction
ISO/IEC TR 29181-1 describes the definition, general concept, problems and requirements for the Future
Network (FN). The other parts of ISO/IEC TR 29181 provide details of various components of the technology.
This part of ISO/IEC TR 29181 identifies problem of the media transport in the IP-based networks and
examines the requirements for the transport of media data over the Future Network.

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TECHNICAL REPORT ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013(E)

Information technology — Future Network — Problem
statement and requirements —
Part 6:
Media transport
1 Scope
This part of ISO/IEC TR 29181 describes the problem statement and requirements for the Future Network in
the perspective of Media Transport. This part of ISO/IEC TR 29181 specifies:
a) detailed description of the media transport requirements in the Future Network;
b) identification and definition of services, basic and media services, which will fit the requirements for
communications over heterogeneous environments supporting various user preferences, for any kind of
media content, either time-dependent or time-independent;
c) requirements and functionalities of Media Aware Network Elements, which are intended to be nodes in
the network to provide seamless media experiences to users.
2 Normative references
The following documents, in whole or in part, are normatively referenced in this document and are
indispensable for its application. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references,
the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO/IEC TR 29181-1, Information technology — Future Network — Problem statement and requirements —
Part 1: Overall aspects
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in ISO/IEC TR 29181-1 and the following
apply.
3.1
data
sequence of octets which is conveyed across the network as a single unit
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC TR 29181-3, 3.1]
3.2
media
sequence of bits in a defined format which encodes physical entities such as images, sounds, and text.
3.3
time-independent media
media where the semantic of the content does not depend upon a presentation according to the time domain
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EXAMPLE 1 text
EXAMPLE 2 still image
3.4
time-dependent media
media where there exists a temporal relation amongst the media units
EXAMPLE 1 audio
EXAMPLE 2 video
3.5
content
media media that is carried in the payload of datagrams sent over the network
3.6
static content
time-independent media that is carried in the payload of datagrams sent over the network
3.7
streamed content
time-dependent media that is carried in the payload of datagrams sent over the network but does not have
requirements for latency
EXAMPLE 1 MP3 files
EXAMPLE 2 Video-on-Demand
3.8
live content
time-dependent media that is carried in the payload of datagrams sent over the network and has requirements
for latency.
EXAMPLE 1 telephone conversation
EXAMPLE 2 video conference
3.9
encapsulation
additional octets or other symbols associated with a data unit which serve to delimit it or to identify aspects of
the service it should receive
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC TR 29181-3, 2.15]
3.10
container
encapsulation structure containing a payload, either data units or content, and the header composed by two
parts, what refers to the payload and to the underlying network
NOTE Container has attributes as header fields, which some are related to particular services, and others are
general and specific for a sort of communication.
3.11
context
set of data or information that completely describes a particular communication environment at a particular
point in time
[SOURCE: ISO 16484-5:2007 (Identifier: CDB-00119069-001)]
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ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013(E)
3.12
context-awareness
ability of a network to be aware of the context and react accordingly in order to adapt either itself or the data
conveyed over
3.13
modular paradigm
paradigm where complex functions are composed by well-known and deterministic basic functions
NOTE In network realm, protocols are breaking down into its fundamental (also called atomic) functions, such as
sequencing, cyclic redundant coding, addressing, and so on, which combined results into complex functions (or protocols).
3.14
MANE (Media Aware Network Element)
content and context aware network element capable of processing media content passing through to
accommodate a given content or service according to the context
NOTE This element may handle all attributes of containers taking into account the content type and properties,
networking properties and status, and other environmental and conditional properties that may have effect in routing of the
contents and services.
3.15
quality of service (QoS)
set of qualities related to the collective behaviour of one or more objects
[SOURCE: ITU-T Rec. X.902 │ ISO/IEC 10746-2]
NOTE QoS is usually defined regarding to three parameters: bandwidth, delay and error. In conversational
communications, bandwidth consumption is related to the chosen technology (although the lower one is desired), the
delay has to be bounded to assure conversational interactivity among participants, and should be provided a high error
resilience to assure a good data delivery in front of any change on the network.
3.16
quality of experience (QoE)
set of subjective and/or objective qualities related to user perception about consumed media content
NOTE QoE is usually referred to how the user perceives the consumed content. QoE is more related to subjective
quality estimation rather than objective measurements, although they can be related by different mapping schemes.
3.17
connection-oriented
communication between peer protocol entities by means of a connection or association established by an
underlying layer
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 11582:2002 (Identifier: CDB-00009275-001)]
3.18
connectionless
communication between peer protocol entities by means of an unacknowledged, unidirectional transport
mechanism provided by an underlying layer
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 11582:2002 (Identifier: CDB-00009276-001)]
3.19
layer coding (LC)
coding technique in which the video stream is split into several hierarchical layers consisting of base layer and
one or more enhancement layers
3.20
multiple description coding (MDC)
coding technique in which a single media stream is fragmented into multiple substreams which can be
delivered over the network in different paths
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ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013(E)
4 Symbols (and abbreviated terms)
3D Three Dimensional
AIMD Additive Increase / Multiplicative Decrease
CABCC Content-Aware Based Congestion Control
CLD Cross-layer design
CLO Cross-layer Optimization
FEC Forward Error Correction
HD High Definition
HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol
LC Layered Coding
MDC Multimedia Description Coding
MEDIEVAL MultimEDia transport for mobIlE Video AppLications
MMT MPEG Media Transport
MPEG Moving Picture Experts Group
MPEG-TS MPEG-Transport Stream
OSI Open Systems Interconnection
P2P Peer to Peer
RTCP Real-Time Control Protocol
RTP Real-Time Protocol
SMART Smart Multimedia Routing and Transport
SMS Short Messages Services
STREP Small or medium-scale focused research project
SVC Scalable Video Coding
TCP Transmission Control Protocol
TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
UDP User Datagram Protocoll
UHD Ultra-High definition
VoIP Voice over IP
WWW World Wide Web
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ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013(E)
5 Overview
5.1 Networks evolving to support of media
During the last few decades, the various research communities have carried out large research activities in
networking and grid e-Infrastructures, which have concluded with the needs of new types of networks and
distributed computing models of communication. In the mid-80s, the research activity was focused on the
Networking Layer (the lower layers of the stack) in order to improve overall quality of the end-to-end
transmission. In the mid-90s, the telecom boom has arrived and started advertising that networks were ready
for the end user. The trend of collaborative environments appeared, where networks were used only as a
transport tool, and it was necessary to work on distributed solutions. The Supercomputing or more recently the
P2P (peer-to-peer) were, and still are, the research lines for searching these solutions, in the layer called
GRID or distributed computing.
Today, the research is focused on the two emerging layers. The first layer is the Scientific Data Layer, where
all the data to be processed and transported will be collected. Scientific Data Layer deploys data repositories
for the scientific community and future generations of scientist supporting. The data repositories are
implemented in a coordinated way to be used as digital libraries, archives, data storage, access to information
and the necessary pooling of resources [6]. The second layer is a new Multimedia Layer, specifically focused
on the convergence of advanced graphics, media and live videoconferencing, which enables any kind of
multimedia data exchange between users on a computer network. Multimedia Layer can communicate directly
with the Scientific Layer, GRID Layer, or Network Layer. It is dependent on the multimedia application and/or
the type of network which it runs on.

Figure 1 — Layers of research activity
Current multimedia research activities have focused on how to adapt the diverse characteristics of media to
the running network architecture by defining middle layer that provides particular features for this sort of traffic.
RTP/RTCP, RTP for uncompressed video, MPEG-TS, and so on, are well-known examples of these mid
layers designed for this reason, to adapt the media content to the TCP/IP network. New middle layers are in
continuous evolution to adapt themselves basically to users and underlying network requirements. All these
middle layers are designed to adapt the media data to the Internet, over the classical stack of communications
designed in the 70s to transmit computer data from end-to-end user.
The middle layers or protocols are presented in the Figure 2. Starting from the left side is the the OSI model,
the TCP/IP stack, and the protocols adopted for the media transport.
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Figure 2 — Current middle layers or protocols used for media
5.2 User demand for media-based services
Few years ago, after the revolution of the WWW and the spreading of the Internet to the end user, the highest
percentage of the traffic in the backbone was based on raw data or time-independent content. Nowadays, this
trend has changed towards the exchange of time-dependent media content, either streamed or live, between
users themselves or between content providers and users. This change to the traffic types has affected the
current Internet framework, where intelligence is in the edges not in the core of the network, communication
model changed from the server client model to the P2P model, as well as to the types of contents transmitted.
In fact, Internet is already a media network based on P2P media traffic and time-dependent content
applications such as VoD (Video on Demand), videostreaming, and broadcasting. It is in this Internet where a
little part of users generates the major part of the global IP traffic. In this regard, in 2009, media content, from
P2P and video services, represented the 80 % and 90 % of the global Internet traffic, respectively. Due to the
convergence of television, video, graphics, and audio, it is expected that video traffic will continuously
increase as with the increasing demand of media content such as HD, 3D, face-to-face video conferencing,
video gaming, etc.
Content Delivery Network is an example reflecting this demand, because network operators are starting to
set-up customized infrastructures, composed by clusters of VoD servers and high capacity network resources,
to enable a network to feed and deliver streamed and live media content to end users in a faster and more
reliable way. The CDN is an associated hybrid-networking infrastructure that requires an enormous amount of
effort in realization and fine-tuning to enable high quality media stream to be delivered along the network.
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Figure 3 — IP network forecast according to CISCO Visual Networking Index [4]
It must be remembered that current network started as a computer networking revolution, and now the
Internet is evolving as a user driven network, based on various types of audio-visual media content. So, the
change in our traditional paradigm of an information and communication network which relies on computers
and telecommunications is clearly moving towards a new media network which shares all kind of cultural
knowledge, science, technology, arts, and games.
Users are becoming into active players in the media-based networks. An evidence of this is the growth of the
contents generated by the users. Their interest in media contents is growing amazingly, and it is expected to
continuously increase in the near future. That means the people are the new driving forces in the design of the
Future Network and will introduce new requirements and demand for new services, applications, and
functionalities.
So, the Future Network must start based on this reality, where users are continuously consuming various
types of media (music, TV series, etc.), both time-dependent and time-independent, and beginning to offer
self-generated videos to the network. People at home will start creating high quality contents, where the user
can interact with the contents and, even, generate and modify it in a collaborative manner. The problem is that
the current Internet is not ready for this convergence between the real media world and networks and future
demands.
6 General concept of FN media transport
The media transport in the Future Network is based on the premises of simplicity and flexibility (evolvable) and
is focused on high quality multimedia communications.
This document introduces general concept of the Future Network based on the actual mechanisms and
protocols used to manipulate the multimedia data. To face this challenge, service-oriented architectures offer
a flexible approach, which enables to define services and compose multiple services in run-time or design-
time, to fit the requirements for particular media communications over heterogeneous context, for any kind of
media content, either time-dependent or time-independent. Future Network will go further than the application
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layer and go down to the communication protocols themselves, choosing in a dynamic fashion any kind of
basic services (e.g.: acknowledgement, sequence number, flow identification, congestion windows, etc.) and
media services (e.g.: content adaptation, scalability, transcoding, etc.) that are needed in a particular
communication, according to the parties capabilities and the media transport requirements. Thus, this
document describes a general concept of the media transport, as the media service composer element,
forming a common container with just the metadata needed, to compose and dynamically adapt specific
media services for a given communication for every sort of contents.

Figure 4 — Container
6.1 Support of connection-oriented and connection-less model
The model is designed as a service-oriented approach for a flow-oriented context-aware network working
mainly in a connection-oriented mode, although connection-less is allowed for particular sort of services,
where communications are composed in situ (using reusable components) according to the needs and
requirements of the consumed service.
The media transport in the future network should be able to work in connection-oriented and connection-less
fashion in datagram transmission, depending on the working environment. In Internet, most data are conveyed
by using TCP with its strict flow and congestion control. Even media applications using UDP transport protocol
relay either on RTP/RTCP, as transport / control protocols, or with a particular control scheme at application
level. So, Future Network is designed to work with both modes, mainly as a connection-oriented but also as a
connectionless mode accordingly to the communication characteristics. The connectionless mode does not
regard upon the on-line status of the peer on the other side, such as short messages services (SMS and
tweets). Broadcasting services may be set as connection-oriented communications following a multicast
pattern across the network, or connection-less in simplex communications such as traditional radio / TV.
6.2 Classification of basic services and composite service
Services are classified into basic (atomic), and composite services. Basic (atomic) services have individual
functions commonly used in networking protocols, e.g. acknowledgments, sequence numbers, flow control,
etc. These are well-defined and self-contained functions, used to deliver data in a self-adaptable, self-
configurable, and context-aware manner. Concretely, media services are those atomic can operate with
multimedia mechanisms (such as transcoding, VBCC, protection, etc.) that belong to the content realm which
may be executed by the same peer or by different peer to perform task in order to provide a higher level
media service. Composite services are the result of combining basic services. Each composite service or
application implies consuming different basic services or other composite services which may have possible
dependences between them. Service can involve one or more nodes, depending on the complexity of the
service. As a result, a container for each particular communication is generated.
Most error resilience techniques applied on real-time communications are FEC (Forward Error Correction),
which adds redundant information increasing the data rate. The application of interleaving mechanisms
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ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013(E)
increases the probability of recovering lost multimedia data in the presence of bursty losses across the
network. These techniques can be applied according the data conveyed as a modular services in an atomic
architecture.
Composite Services
ACK
SN
Basic Services
Adaptation
TS
ACK
SN
… Media Services
Adaptation
SN: Sequence number Scalability
TS: Timestamp
ACK: Acknowledment

Figure 5 — Basic services and composite services
In order to obtain the desired behaviour, functionality and QoS constrains, communications are established
concatenating atomic services into a workflow for consuming a certain composite services. They are allocated
amongst the involved nodes, as required by conditions of temporal context and service requirements. In this
way, all functions are used only when and where the
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