Towards a User-Centric and Quality-Aware Multimedia Service Delivery Implementation on IP Multimedia Subsystem

IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) originating from the 3GPP is pivotal on the road to next generation all-IP networks. Multimedia applications are potential drivers for the adoption of next generation IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) and could be a decisive factor in its deployment. They are expected to generate revenue to the operators and justify their investment in IMS. And, for these multimedia services to be widely accepted by the end users, guaranteed and adaptable quality of service provision across heterogeneous access networks and heterogeneous device types is mandatory. In this paper, a generic, adaptive, controlled service delivery framework implementation for multimedia applications on IMS architecture is proposed. The framework is designed to be user-centric, adaptable to terminal mobility and session mobility with minimum session disruption enabling a better end-to-end QoS. It is at the session-level, completely user-driven and does not account for the network-level QoS. It employs the Session initiation protocol (SIP), which is the signaling protocol for the 3GPP specified IMS. The purpose behind designing the framework is to evaluate the provisioning of quality-adaptive multimedia services on IMS network and analyze the performance with respect to delay induced by quality adaptation procedures during session and terminal mobility which might contribute towards the end-to- end quality of service delivered to the users.