Service management for end-to-end QoS multimedia content delivery in heterogeneous environment

Integrated service management aims to support efficient cooperation between various business entities, in order to offer end-to-end QoS based services to end users. This is challenging, especially in the context of heterogeneous technologies (IP, DVB-TIS, UWS, GSM/GPRS, etc.). This paper proposes a service management (SM) architecture, involving several actors such as service providers (SP), content providers (CP), network providers (NP) and content consumers (CC). The SM framework presented is an architectural component of an integrated management system (IMS), having as a prime objective the support of end-to-end QoS based services through the integrated management of content, networks and terminals in heterogeneous network contexts.