VisionAIR Trials: Bari

Introduction

In this section, there is a general description of all the broadband services that will be provided to the users during the VisionAIR trial of Bari. To reach this aim, the necessary starting point is an introductorily overview of the type of users that will be involved in the trial :

1. home users
2. disabled/elderly people, the municipal assistance center, and a medical specialist
3. small and medium enterprises (typically press operators)
4. schools
5. municipal centers (headquarter and peripheral centers)

This set of users appears to be a good sample for testing and evaluating both the impact on the citizens of new broadband services and the ability of the Municipality, through the technical work of Tecnopolis, for the integration and management of these services over a complex broadband IP network.

It is important to note that not only traditional citizens are reported as "users" of the foreseen services, but also other "entities" such as Municipal Centers. This choice is useful for the description of the services that will be reported later in this document, but we have to not forget that only citizens (including employers of small and medium enterprises) are the final customers of all services. However, this concept will be clearer in the description of each service. The general list of foreseen services for the trial of Bari, as taken from Deliverable 1 (D1), is reported in the following table :

In the Bari trial, experiments are foreseen with

1. video services, based on either live vision or on-demand vision,
2. services that will be based on voice and video data exchange between users, and
3. services for secure and fast Internet access.

These services are described in more detail in the next paragraphs.

Another important issue regards the way by which all services will be presented to the users of the trial. Except for the Internet access and the Voice over IP services, that are general "connectivity services", a web site or VisionAIR portal will be realized. It will contain HTML pages that will continuously show a list of all available services during the trial (such as a catalogue of Video on Demand events) and all related conditions (such as the time schedule for broadcast video). Every user will browse these web pages to reach every desired (and subscribed) service.

Real time traffic situation report

This service consists in the real time vision of traffic situation in the city of Bari. A distributed set of telecameras is already present in some critical points of the city and it is connected to the Control Center of the municipal police, located in Bari, where the operators continuously monitor the situation. The project will provide the hardware/software platform and the network links that are necessary for giving to the users the possibility of seeing in real time the monitored traffic situation.

Live and video-on-demand vision of "municipal events"

The Municipality of Bari wishes to offer to customers the vision of some relevant "municipal events", typically (but not only) town council discussions and press conferences. This kind of service presents some similarities with the one described above ("real time traffic situation report") but also some important differences.

An audio-video recording system is just installed at the city hall and an external enterprise is going to obtain from the Municipality the task of manage this system in order to produce the final audio/video analog content; also in this case, the trial will provide the hardware/software platform for the distribution, in real time, of the contents, obviously after digitalization of them. Moreover, the same events will be stored in order to provide the classical Video on Demand service : users will be able to select and see the recorded events in every moment they prefer, by using a web interface with on-line catalogue. It is possible to think also to another kind of vision, properly called Near Video on Demand : once an event has been stored, it is possible to schedule its transmission in broadcast in certain times and days, just like the live vision but with the difference that the content has been pre-recorded.

Video on Demand

The Video on Demand service lets users to see audio-video streams in every moment, such as a classical Video on Demand service. From the point of view of the contents that will be available for this service, actually they can be divided in two categories :

• the first one consists of the "municipal events" that have been just described in the previous paragraph : all digitalized municipal events will be stored by Tecnopolis and will be made available for users for a more or less long period of time,
• the second possibility consists of digitalized contents that are just available, for free, in the Web. In this case, it is necessary to make a digital conversion from the original audio/video format (such as MOV or AVI or whatever) to the VisionAIR's desired format

In any case, the possibility of downloading video contents that are just available on the Web requires more and detailed contacts with providers that manage these contents, in order to clarify some legal and commercial aspects of the problem, so this option has to be considered only as an advanced future option. At least for the initial part of the trial, the video catalogue for on demand requests will include only municipal events.

One-to-One Videoconference between municipal offices

This service has been thought to facilitate the citizens of the city's periphery : remaining near their house and going to decentralized municipal office, they will be able to receive services that instead actually are supplied only from the headquarter. More particularly speaking, actually the Municipality has a specific department, named "Office for Public Relations", that is located only in the headquarter : this office provides many informations, about the Municipality, the Offices, the Local Entities and the life inside the city (i.e., social events, work's occasions and so on), that citizens seem to appreciate every day. So, the Municipality wishes to distribute this service also in the peripheral regions of the city.

To achieve this aim, a single-user videoconference between citizens and employs of the central office itself will be done.

Multi-user videoconference for social tele-assistance

This service can be provided for several scopes. It is surely a source of aggregation for the citizens, but it is also a powerful instrument for some other services provided by the Municipality, such as the remote assistance that the city just now operates, with a specific department, in charge of offering assistance services to disabled or elderly people.

Actually, the remote assistance service is provided only by phone communications between assisted users and operators of a Call Center (that is managed by an external enterprise). By using the IP infrastructure provided by the VisionAIR's network, the Municipality wants to extend the service with video communications between the same people.

The architecture of this service is only a little more complicated than the one for single-user videoconference, since now it involves the participation of more that two users to each connection. More specifically speaking, for Bari's trial the service will foresee a connection between no more than 3 users : every "audio/video session" will start between the Municipal Call Center and the final user (the request for the connection can start either from the Call Center or from the user); if the operator thinks that the intervention of a medical specialist is necessary or desiderable, the specialist will be contacted by the operator and so he will join the session.

Voice over IP

VoIP service allows end-users to make VoIP telephone calls with quality that is comparable with the one in traditional telephony. To provide this service, each user will use the Residential Gateway as a VoIP Gateway, bypassing public switched telephone network and using the network infrastructure based on the connection with Tecnopolis. Moreover, the technical center should have the task of provide the connection with Internet (to contact other users with "IP phone" devices) and with fixed and wireless public telephone networks (to contact traditional telephone users).

The Municipality is seeking for some providers that could offer a VoIP to public telephone network service ( ). In any case, for the trial, the principal aim is to provide the service only between VisionAIR's users.

Secure and Fast Internet Access

The project will provide a high level service for connections of final users to Internet and its related contents and services. In this manner, the Municipality aims to reach two important objectives : first off all, it can propose itself as a traditional Internet Provider, by giving a basical high-speed access to the Web and by characterizing it with some additional features, with respect to other classical providers, such as security and caching; secondly, since the Municipality just manages a Web Portal with some services for citizens, it can proceed to upgrade its portal in order to provide new services that will be able to take advantage of the high bandwidth and reliability provided by VisionAIR's network.

The following two features characterize the basic "Internet Access" service : high speed and security. Moreover, since the Municipality offers this service as a traditional Internet provider, it will provide also the classical services such as Domain Name Resolution, Electronic Mail (SMTP/POP3/IMAP), Ftp on demand, Web Hosting and so on.

Internet access with user-friendly devices (Web TV)

This service is a sort of particular "version" of the previous described "Secure and Fast Internet Access" service, where the "particularity" regards the client devices : in fact, customers will access Internet (with all related available services and contents) not only with traditional devices such as personal computers as previously said, but also and especially with dedicated and user-friendly devices (set-top-boxes). A typical "web set" can be constituted by a wireless mouse and a wireless keyboard that are interfaced with a set top box that has the TV set as monitor. This service is commonly called "Web TV". In this manner, the Municipality will try to reduce the gap between many citizens and new communication technologies and so it will distribute its services in a more extended manner, through the usage of easy-to-use devices that could be really utilizable also from those citizens that are not very familiar with information and communication technology.

Since a common TV set will be used to browse the Web, it is desirable that also "video services" can be available for the users and that they could provide a sufficient QoS (that means a good size for video window and a good resolution).

Network Overview