This chapter provides an overview of how to supply broadband access, i.e. high speed Internet services, to the population at large. The chapter overviews digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, cable modems, wireless local multipoint distribution systems (LMDSs) and satellite technologies. It will allow readers to understand the terminology and help to explain how to use the technologies in real network configurations. DSL and cable modems are currently being deployed across the globe. LMDS radio licences have been issued in several countries now and satellite technology has transitioned from a focus on the mobile, narrowband, backhaul and rural markets to being looked at as a viable broadband access system. In addition, an increasing amount of optical fibre is being deployed in access networks. Metropolitan fibre rings, from a range of different carriers, are now being constructed in many of the developed world's largest cities. The chapter starts by providing a brief overview of some of the key broadband access technologies that are being used to address the residential and SME markets. The focus then switches to describe BT's approach to wired broadband access using ADSL and the potential evolution of the wired access network platform.

The satellite communications industry is currently entering a new chapter by migrating from its traditional international private circuit (IPC), international direct dial (IDD) trunk connection, and broadcast TV/satellite news gathering (SNG) roles, into the new and exciting arena of delivering broadband Internet and multimedia content directly to end users, Early examples of this migration are the successful operation of several satellite Internet services in North America and Europe. Furthermore, these satellite Internet operators are currently exploiting to some extent the unique ubiquitous coverage characteristics of satellite by being able to deliver broadband content to areas presently outside the reach of conventional terrestrial xDSL networks. In summation, satellite networks provide a unique local access delivery opportunity to the broadband applications area: through the efficient delivery of on-line content such as distance learning, news or near-VoD; through delivery of off-line download services such as virus and OS updates or e-mail; and by virtue of their natural support for the future generation of multicast-based applications.

This chapter has examined the analysts' reports in an attempt to shed light on how and when home area networks may become a reality. It is clear that there are a number of different networking technologies and, with the current state of the telecommunications market, the predictions for in-home networks are in years rather than months. Benefit, price and the access technology (broadband to the home) are all contributing factors. Connecting PCs on a local network to access the Internet for information will eventually merge with networked entertainment systems. This will generate a need for the residential gateway. Initially this is seen as part of the CPE (PC or set-top box) until costs fall and benefit grows. In reality, it is a confusing picture with many players and variables. It is the task of those in the technology areas to simplify, clarify and show the home users a clear path to networking their digital homes.

To drive down costs and ensure as competitive a product offering as possible, each area of the broadband delivery needs to be examined carefully to see if there are ways in which costs can be reduced. A good example of this is in the home installation where the recent launch of self-install ('Plug & Go'), which allows the customer to install the modem and drivers, has led to the reduction in the price of the broadband service. The main areas where savings could be made are in the registration process, installation of the customer premises equipment (CPE), and in the regulation of the broadband service which affects the delivery process.

A significant proportion of homes now contain computers connected to the Internet, and an 'always-on' connection is becoming a reality for many. Increasingly, people have more than one computer and are starting to network them. There is a steady move towards convergence of entertainment and computing, with set-top boxes offering Internet access and PCs configured as entertainment centres. Looking ahead, it is envisaged that there will be substantial numbers of networked appliances and embedded devices around the home. This offers enormous business opportunities for service providers, but the infrastructure must be as reliable as the existing utility services and just as easy to use. The residential gateway (RG) is seen as a key component in the home network, but appreciation of the form and function of the RG varies quite widely. The first section considers the evolution path for the RG as it emerges from a simple hub through to the services platform of the future. Then the alternative proposals for RG location are discussed, from the traditional telco view that it should be part of the core network, through to the consumer view that it is a domestic appliance that they own. The key management issue of autoconfiguration is looked at from the perspective of a future where devices are becoming pervasive and range down to the very small. Then the management of applications on the RG are examined, with particular reference to the Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi). Finally some thoughts about the future are presented.

We have come a long way from the days when all we needed to do was connect two PCs together using an RS232 cable in order to share data, or to play against each other within a game of Doom! Today we want to share music and video files, share a common resource like a printer, or share our high-speed connection to the Internet. Some of this, of course, has always been possible, but in the past has been too difficult, expensive or too restrictive in bandwidth terms. People are now realising the potential of sharing their digital content on a much wider scale using the power of the Internet. Networking has moved on considerably and we are no longer limited to one or two technologies to fulfil the above needs. A whole array of both wired and wireless solutions now exists, the data rates of which range from a few hundred kilobytes of throughput, to a hundred megabytes and beyond. It is predicted that, in the future, bandwidth limitations will not be the main problem. The key issue will be the ease with which you can connect up your digital home.

This chapter describes current BT standards activities in the areas of broadband CPE, in particular standards for broadband set-top boxes (STBs) and in-home networking. A number of activities in relevant standard forums are described, in particular CPE activities in the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) Forum and the Full Service-VDSL (FS-VDSL) Forum.

The broadband revolution, or access to the Internet via high-speed connections, has been hailed as the future of the Internet. This chapter has provided a picture of the current 'state of play' in the domestication of broadband Internet access in Europe. It has done so by bringing together several different data sources, each of which provides a distinct but complementary view of what people do with broadband Internet. It has been seen that broadband Internet users differ only marginally from PSTN Internet users but that the differences may be commercially significant. This summary highlights the finding that broadband Internet users tend to be more experienced and technologically competent.

This chapter has described the work done by the EURESCOM P1003 project to understand the used needs for future always-on network services. It has been shown that although AO services are starting to appear there is still some way to go before the network technology and on-line services fully exploit the characteristics of being always-on. An important issue in the explosive growth in mobile devices, which is leading to the scenario of heterogeneous networks and devices. The user is now 'always-on' not only from a unique device but also from a variety of devices such as mobile or fixed telephone, a stationary PC, a laptop computer, etc. The goal is to ensure that the user's services and applications can be presented and moved smoothly and naturally between devices. This has led to the development of device-unifying service on the EURESCOM P1001 project. The key difference with DUS is to allow always-on service sessions to be dynamically switched between different devices and networks, and to do this in a completely seamless way, so that data sessions such as Web and e-mail are treated in the same way as multimedia sessions such as voice and videoconferencing. This chapter has described the scope and requirements for the DUS. Currently the project is developing the core DUS platform and a number of usage trials by the project partners are planned to fully evaluate the concept in use.

This chapter has provided a summary of a research programme at BTexact Technologies which is aimed at helping a technology innovation company to ground its innovations, to see opportunities for the exploitation of its technologies, and to create socio-technical visions which can help to drive technological innovation itself. As a by-product, the programme has also created strategic knowledge that is of critical importance to public and private policy/decision makers alike. Perhaps most importantly of all, this research is a key part of BTexact's approach to the creation of and response to disruptive technologies, because, through thinking about changes in modes of provision, it provides exactly the kinds of insights that are required to answer such questions as: “... does (the technology) enable a broader population of less skilled or less wealthy customers to do things for themselves that previously only experts or wealthy individuals could do?” and “... does this product or service help customers get done more easily and effectively what they are already trying to get done?”. As Cosier and Hughes note: “... it is the usage by people that creates social, economic and business disruption.” It is therefore self-evident that understanding 'usage by people' is absolutely critical to figuring out what is disruptive about technologies, why this is so and therefore how to make money out of them. Since this is critical to several of BTexact's core competencies (and to those of its customers), the value of the research reported here to BTexact and its customers is also self-evident. Without it, they will only ever make money by accident and as we noted at the start, such a strategy is not likely to amuse their shareholders.

This chapter looks at the digital home from the customer perspective, based on practical experience gained from a range of current and recent projects. It identifies who the customers are, the types of service they are looking for and the underlying issues that can hold back or accelerate developments in this area. It also describes a framework for engagement with the customer which is being successfully employed by BTexact Technologies.

This chapter has presented a view of what the network infrastructure might look like in the near future. Client terminals with a wide range of capabilities are supported by a rich set of shared computing and content resources. Each time a service is used, a custom combination of content elements, processing and network connections is used. These parts all need to work together to provide a good quality of service to the user.

One of the most exciting aspects of the Internet is that it contains information about almost every imaginable subject. High-bandwidth availability with broadband net works is providing a powerful and popular means for the same situation to become true for video content. We describe here a vision where your broadband connection gives you access to an unimaginably vast library of almost every programme and film ever made.

In this chapter we have discussed the recent trend in developing an advanced videoconferencing system that moves towards being a seamless integration of a real and virtual world environment with high-quality 3-D telepresence, while focusing on outlining the scope of research work and software system architecture for the VIRTUE project. The entire VIRTUE system design is flexible and conceived largely on the basis of exploiting state-of-the-art technologies in the computer vision, and image and video processing fields guided by the results of human factor studies, rather than physically placing multiple displays, cameras and human subjects. Specifically, we have chosen to demonstrate a core component for 3-D scene analysis, an efficient technique for robust disparity estimation from stereos of still and dynamic scenes, and its application in 3-D visualisation and videoconferencing applications when employing an image-based rendering approach for reconstructing new (and temporarily coherent) virtual views.

The Prometheus project is seeking to create a virtual studio production chain. Prometheus is a three-year collaborative LINK project under the Broadcast Technology Programme funded by the UK DTI and EPSRC, led by the BBC. The project includes markerless face and body tracking, actor and clothing model animation, scene construction and three-dimensional display technologies. It is seeking to build an entire production framework to encapsulate these technologies. This will open up new possibilities in the creation, distribution and display of multimedia content, and promises a revolution in which the director and viewer of performances will have unprecedented powers. Actors, scenes and props become components to be arranged at will. This chapter considers these technologies, discussing the challenges that actors and directors now face and the new powers of the viewer. It also reflects on the historic changes in 'entertainment experiences'.

A virtual human is a graphical representation of a human being; BTexact Technologies is actively working in the field of virtual humans, particularly avatars. The idea of an avatar became synonymous with a graphical representation of oneself in a computer-generated environment, after the science-fictional novel Snow Crash was launched, written by Neil Stephenson [1], an author whose ideas were ahead of their time. BTexact Technologies has taken the concept of an avatar a step forward, by enabling people to project their own body image on to their avatar, and create personal avatars.

Only products that take good account of basic human needs and nature will be successful in the market-place. Many existing visions of the future home are based too much on technology capability and take too little account of human nature and everyday life-styles, and therefore are doomed to failure. Many of the products hyped for the future home will never achieve significant market success. However, another flaw in many visions is that they assume incremental and evolutionary progress in technology, whereas history has shown repeatedly that markets are changed mostly by disruptive technologies. These cannot be seen so easily by simply applying extrapolation devices such as Moore's Law. They require more lateral thinking, and therefore such insights tend to happen by accident rather than by planning. Our future homes will be smarter than today's, and much of the intelligence will come from almost invisible systems. Myriads of almost invisible activators will infest our homes and make self-organised communications networks between themselves to enhance many areas of our lives. But we must be careful to develop control systems that allow humans to easily control what is going on, or they will not be accepted. Machines will be welcome in our homes, but only if they know their place.