Slow but Steady: Cap-Based Client-Network Interaction for Improved Streaming Experience

Abstract

Due to widespread popularity of streaming services, many streaming clients typically compete over bottleneck links for their own bandwidth share. However, in such environments, the rate adaptation algorithms used by modern streaming clients often result in instability and unfairness, which negatively affects the playback experience. In addition, mobile clients often waste bandwidth by trying to stream excessively high video bitrates. We present and evaluate a cap-based framework in which the network and clients cooperate to improve the overall Quality of Experience (QoE). First, to motivate the framework, we conduct a comprehensive study using the lab setup showing that a fixed rate cap comes with both benefits (e.g., data savings, improved stability and fairness) and drawbacks (e.g., higher startup times and slower recovery after stalls). To address the drawbacks while keeping the benefits, we then introduce and evaluate a framework that includes (i) buffer-aware rate caps in which the network temporarily boosts the rate cap of clients during video startup and under low buffer conditions, and (ii) boost-aware client-side adaptation algorithms that optimize the bitrate selection during the boost periods. Combined with information sharing between the network and clients, these mechanisms are shown to improve QoE, while reducing wasted bandwidth.