An Innovative Dynamic Bit Rate Streaming Approach to Improve Mobile User Multimedia Quality of Experience

Abstract

The next generation of mobile network communication systems will require from Internet Service Providers (ISP) the deployment of innovative and sophisticated Quality of Service (QoS) strategies to improve users perceived Quality of Experience (QoE). Many of the currently available QoS strategies are based on the Policy-based Network Management (PBNM) approach, commonly deployed in ISPs, which manages network resources according to users Service Level Agreement (SLA) To achieve efficiency, flexibility and scalability, the Software-Defined Mobile Networking (SDMN) paradigm enables a framework for deploying new resource management strategies such as the class-based over-provisioning model. However, especially in the mobile multimedia application scenario, the admission control operation may become ineffective when dealing with congestion situations since current streaming services do not provide an efficient way to control its transmission rate. This limitation is mainly caused by the rate adaptation engine which depends on user-side implementations, leading to unfair resource sharing. Traditional rate adjustment mechanisms also may impact on less capable mobile devices due to processing overheads, such as smartphones and IoT-enabled (Internet of Things) devices. In this scope, this work proposes the Dynamic Bit Rate Streaming Service over SDMN (DBR3S), an SDMN-based framework which enables PBNM resource management and a rate adaptation model based on network availability measurements carried out by an optimized control plane and enforced on the multimedia server through a cooperation system. The assessments demonstrate the feasibility of the DBR3S system, improving substantially the mobile users QoE over traditional streaming services.