Collective Segment Request Policy of HTTP Adaptive Streaming in Multipath Environments

HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) adaptive streaming has been receiving attention to provide video streaming services efficiently by adaptively adjusting the transmission rate. With the demand of high-quality video streaming, since mobile devices are now equipped with multiple wireless interfaces connected to different networks (3G/4G or WiFi), one possible solution to provide better QoE (Quality of Experience) is to use multipath protocols. In HTTP adaptive streaming system, the player generates an ON/OFF traffic pattern during the steady state. It degrades the bandwidth utilization and the user QoE. In this paper, we propose a collective segment request policy of HTTP adaptive streaming in multipath environments to improve the bandwidth utilization. In our scheme, the player requests a group of segments in periodical interval to reduce the OFF period. We also present the rate adaptation scheme to improve the average bitrate. Through simulation, we prove that our scheme significantly improves bandwidth utilization and increase average bitrate.