A fusion IP/DVB networking environment for providing always-on connectivity and triple-play services to urban and rural areas

This article introduces and validates a concept for the realization of a fusion IP/DVB networking environment that supports the provision of urban and rural always-on connectivity and triple-play services. Specifically, the proposed fusion environment realizes a unified infrastructure that changes traditional, passive urban users into active, information society participants capable of creating, manipulating, and distributing their own content/services over a commonly exploited infrastructure. Further, the environment enables triple-play services and always-on connectivity in rural areas, that is, in regions where there is no termination of the core backbone to the local PSTN/ISDN exchanger. Finally, the article describes important directions for future research to follow to exploit the proposed IP/DVB unified platform for the synergy of emerging broadcasting, telecommunications, wireless, and wired technologies, to alleviate the digital divide that currently exists not only among countries but also within most countries.