Home and Access networks

Within Home and Access Networks we experience an enormous interest in all aspects from installation through technology to business models - and everything is fuelled by the rapidly increasing demand for services.

Picture on the right; a plastic fiber in a tube for electrical cables.

Secure access - ICT and testbeds for health care applications

Broadband networks are today primarily used for commercial services as Internet access, IP-telephony and IPTV. However, broadband based services are becoming increasingly important for other areas such as health care and safety, real estate services for energy saving and control.

These services put new demands on the broadband network and communication. Most of these new requirements are linked to security in terms of robustness, availability, confidentiality and privacy, whereas the solutions shall function in an open multi-service and multi-operator environment.

Testbeds with end-user involvement

Acreo has together with 20 partners representing network owners and operators, equipment suppliers and service providers been granted VINNOVA financing for the project “Broadband Testbed for Secure Access of public services”. The project develops robust communication solutions for secure access of public services by establishing requirements for the property and home networks, creating a system environment for the home and to verify the solutions in a testbed environment. Acreo has a long experience in developing and running testbeds. The Acreo National Testbed is a meeting place for a wide spectrum of regional, national and international institutions and companies working with research and commercialization of products and services for broadband networks; A testbed with the end-user in focus.

Gateway functionality for e-health

The main application areas for the project are healthcare and safety. So far the project has developed solutions for the Gateway functionality for e-health, Robust 3:rd party SW in OSGI environment, Secure authorization of users and equipment and Dual Homing between Fixed and Mobile network. These solutions will be implemented in gateways and demonstrated in e-health use cases in Acreo`s testbed. The project will run until August 2013.

Örjan Mattsson, Acreo

orjan.mattsson(at)aceo.se

Home networks

Stable, accessible, and high capacity home networks are becoming increasingly important as IP-based services are getting ever more widespread and demanding. Apart from the pure internet based services we are working with the Android platform. One of the major categories of services Acreo is addressing is eHealth.

At Acreo we also work with alternative installation methods:
By inserting a plastic optical fiber into the tubes for the electrical cables it is possible to get internet access at each power outlet. Check out the demonstration at "Elmässan" 2010 by Jonas Lindqvist and Mali Pathirana. It is easy to handle and install plastic optical fiber. With a pair of scissors the visitor in the booth is sucessful the first time.

The smart home is another important activity. This includes sensor networks, automation, and home gateway design and functionality.

We see an increasing usage of the broadband networks for different type of community services as e.g. e-health. That puts new demands on the Home networks and the residential gateway regarding security issues. Acreo is looking into that in a project which is dealing with secure access.

Access networks

Access networks are the networks connecting homes and businesses to the core network. At Acreo we work predominantly with fiber based access networks (such as fiber-to-the-home or FTTH) that are replacing DSL and coaxial cable based connections.

The activities within access networks encompass the following technical issues: comparison between PON and AON Ethernet, how to increase the bandwidth, and how to optimize the network when content distribution is moving from centralized client-server models to more distributed models as e.g. peer-to-peer.

Since the end users eventually are paying for the network deployment it is critical to regard cost of both equipment, deployment and operations – incl. green aspects. Therefore we also do research within techno-economics and business models for FTTH.