Performance analysis of a prototypal multimedia service in an intelligent broadband network

Advanced multimedia multiparty services call for sophisticated signalling s ystems able to manage multiple parties and media in broadband environments. In this paper we dealt with the support of multimedia applications in an I ntelligent Broadband Network (IBN), where the Intelligent Network, in a clo sed interaction with the B-ISDN, furnishes control functionality to handle complex service configuration. Some different options for an IN/B-ISDN inte raction are discussed starting from the results of the INSIGNIA project (ca rried out in the framework of the European Union ACTS program) where a prot otypal IBN system has been specified and developed in a field trial. Two ma in architectural solutions are discussed and a generic modelling methodolog y for the performance analysis of the control plane is presented. The objec tive of this modelling methodology is to provide insights into the behaviou r of the system under dynamic conditions and to capture the influence of al ternative functional settings. The proposed model is applied to the evaluat ion of the support of the Broadband Video Conference service in the prototy pal system as well as to compare the performance of alternative architectur al solutions for the IBN. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserve d.