QoE Model Based Optimization for Streaming Media Service Considering Equipment and Environment Factors

With the development of smart phones, one of the hot research topics for wireless personal communication technologies has begun to transit from reaching higher communication capabilities to better Quality of Experiences (QoE). However, for streaming services, such as online music or online video, which is one of the mainstream services in the future wireless network, there is still no breakthrough optimization beyond the Quality of Service (QoS) hence the optimization results are not satisfactory. Based on our study, this problem could be relieved by altering the criterion of wireless resource allocation from enhancing users?? QoS to enhancing their QoE, which specifically means that the scope of the research is extended from the so-called last mile between the network and the user equipment to the last few inches between the user equipment and the user himself. Unfortunately, it seems that all current QoE researches are still not jointly considering the users?? environment and user equipments?? performance, both of which are paramount factors of the last inches that will influence users?? QoE directly and profoundly. Hence, in this paper, we propose a QoE model involving the environment and equipment factors, and then we use this model to guide the wireless resource allocation. Simulation results show that this resource allocation method will increase the effectiveness of network resource utilization as well as improve the average of satisfaction of users.     

Radio resource management of heterogeneous services in mobile WiMAX systems [Radio Resource Management and Protocol Engineering for IEEE 802.16]

IEEE 802.16e, known as mobile WiMAX, has gained much attention recently for its capability to support high transmission rates in cellular environments and QoS for different applications. Beyond what the standard can define, in order to effectively support video streaming, VoIP, and data services, proprietary radio resource management, including multiconnection assignment, scheduling controls, and call admission controls, are essential. In this study we evaluate the downlink performance of a mobile WiMAX cellular system with different radio resource management, especially the scheduler for QoS control and the implementation of multiconnection for streaming applications     

一种基于无线多媒体业务的可升降级QoS动态带宽分配与优化策略

无线多媒体网络中的业务包括话音、流媒体、交互类和背景类业务4种,除话音业务外其余3种业务都是可变比特速率业务。对该网络用户资源分配(主要是带宽的分配)若采用传统的固定分配方法,必定陷入资源利用率低下和用户QoS得不到保障的两难境地。该文提出了一种基于无线多媒体业务的动态带宽分配与优化策略,在保证用户QoS的前提下,尽可能提高资源利用率。该文分别从网络和用户两个角度考虑,通过系统容量、业务阻塞率、数据延迟、流媒体的实际传输比和VBR业务综合服务等级等参数,对可升降级QoS无线多媒体网络进行了仿真分析,结果表明,对比传统的网络资源管理策略,该策略大大改善了系统的性能,提高了系统资源利用率。     

Resource allocation using adaptive linear prediction in WDM/TDM EPONs

This letter discusses dynamic-wavelength and bandwidth-allocation (DWBA) algorithm for differentiated services in hybrid WDM/TDM EPONs (Ethernet passive optical networks). We integrate the traffic estimation for variable-bit-rate (VBR) video traffic with the resource allocation to satisfy the increasing demand of video streaming services. A new DWBA algorithm using an adaptive linear prediction model is proposed to estimate the bandwidth required by VBR video traffic arriving during the next waiting period, so that the DWBA algorithm can assign wavelength and bandwidth more effectively. Simulation results show that the proposed DWBA-ALP algorithm can significantly improve the delay jitter performance for both CBR and VBR services.     

Secure and reliable computation offloading in blockchain-assisted cyber-physical IoT systems

With the development of the Cyber-Physical Internet of Things System (CPIoTS), the number of Cyber-Physical System (CPS) applications accessed in networks has increased dramatically. Latency-sensitive resource orchestration in CPS applications is extraordinarily essential for maintaining the Quality of Experience (QoE) for users. Although edge-cloud computing performs effectively in achieving latency-aware resource allocation in CPIoTS, existing methods fail to jointly consider the security and reliability requirements, thereby increasing the process latency of tasks and degrading the QoE of users. This paper aims to minimize the system latency of edge-cloud computing coupled with CPS while simultaneously considering the security and reliability requirements. We first consider a time-varying channel model as a Finite-State Markov Channel (FSMC) and propose a distributed blockchain-assisted CPIoTS to realize secure consensus and reliable resource orchestration by offloading computation tasks in edge-cloud computing. Moreover, we propose an efficient resource allocation algorithm, PPO-SRRA, that optimizes computing offloading and multi-dimension resource (e.g., communication, computation, and consensus resource) allocation by using a policy-based Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) method. The experimental results show that the proposed resource allocation scheme can reduce the system latency and ensure consensus security.     

Cross-layer mobile WiMAX MAC designs for the H.264/AVC scalable video coding

To effectively provide the QoS of streaming services in mobile WiMAX systems, this paper proposes a cross-layer design between the streaming server and mobile WiMAX base stations. We will show that for each user the implementation of multiple connections with feedback information of the available transmission bandwidth is critical for supporting H.264/AVC-based scalable video coding in which the transmission packets can be further separated into multiple levels of importance. To quantify the performance, a mobile WiMAX simulation platform including both the video encoder/decoder and IEEE 802.16e MAC controls is developed.     

Framework for Fast and Efficient Cloud Video Transcoding System Using Intelligent Splitter and Hadoop MapReduce

The way computing was done has changed a lot in recent times. Nowadays mobile devices have been the stealing the show. These devices come in different specifications, that any multimedia content that is to be played requires transcoding for better user experiences. Cloud based video services cater to the needs of the end user based on their requirements, through video transcoding. Hence video transcoding plays a very important role in today’s evolving streaming media environment. The major problem with video transcoding is that it consumes a lot of time and impacts seriously on the quality of the output. Transcoding uses the device information to transform the video into the required format and this process is done in a distributed fashion, to speed up the process. This work proposes an Intelligent Video Splitter which uses the Map Reduce algorithm to provide efficiency based on time factor. The important performance metrics including video distortion (VD), video distortion due to frame dependency (FDD) were considered. The results showed that the proposed framework perceptibly outperforms than the prevailing strategies. It provides higher video quality as a result of it introduces less video distortion. In future this method may be extended to supply associate automatic device aware video standards.     

A brief survey on adaptive video streaming quality assessment

Quality of experience (QoE) assessment for adaptive video streaming plays a significant role in advanced network management systems. It is especially challenging in case of dynamic adaptive streaming schemes over HTTP (DASH) which has increasingly complex characteristics including additional playback issues. In this paper, we provide a brief overview of adaptive video streaming quality assessment. Upon our review of related works, we analyze and compare different variations of objective QoE assessment models with or without using machine learning techniques for adaptive video streaming. Through the performance analysis, we observe that hybrid models perform better than both quality-of-service (QoS) driven QoE approaches and signal fidelity measurement. Moreover, the machine learning-based model slightly outperforms the model without using machine learning for the same setting. In addition, we find that existing video streaming QoE assessment models still have limited performance, which makes it difficult to be applied in practical communication systems. Therefore, based on the success of deep learned feature representations for traditional video quality prediction, we also apply the off-the-shelf deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) to evaluate the perceptual quality of streaming videos, where the spatio-temporal properties of streaming videos are taken into consideration. Experiments demonstrate its superiority, which sheds light on the future development of specifically designed deep learning frameworks for adaptive video streaming quality assessment. We believe this survey can serve as a guideline for QoE assessment of adaptive video streaming.     

An Efficient QoE-Aware HTTP Adaptive Streaming over Software Defined Networking

Due to the increase in video streaming traffic over the Internet, more innovative methods are in demand for improving both Quality of Experience (QoE) of users and Quality of Service (QoS) of providers. In recent years, HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) has received significant attention from both industry and academia based on its impacts on the enhancement of media streaming services. However, HAS-alone cannot guarantee a seamless viewing experience, since this highly relies on the Network Operators’ infrastructure and evolving network conditions. Along with the development of future Internet infrastructure, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has been researched and newly implemented as a promising solution in improving services of different Internet layers. In this paper, we present a novel architecture incorporating bitrate adaptation and dynamic route allocation. At the client side, adaptation logic of VBR videos streaming is built based on the MPEG-DASH standard. On the network side, an SDN controller is implemented with several routing strategies on top of the OpenFlow protocol. Our experimental results show that the proposed solution enhances at least 38% up to 185% in term of average bitrate in comparison with some existing solutions as well as achieves better viewing experience than the traditional Internet.

     

基于RSVP的QoS参数控制报文设计与实现

本文提出一种高速网络服务质量(QoS)参数的设计与实现方法.该方法在Internet标准RFC2205的基础上,根据不同的多媒体应用类型和服务质量需求,首先对服务质量进行量化和分类,然后设计和定义基于RSVP(Reservation Protocol)的、可供路由器和端系统识别的各类服务质量控制报文,并设计和实现一种利用这些报文进行QoS控制的方法.这些QoS参数控制报文的提出使得RSVP协议在广域网上的实现成为可能,从而提高Internet传送多媒体应用的能力.     

MIMO Based Radio Resource Management for UMTS Multicast Broadcast Multimedia Services

MIMO systems promise high performance gains over conventional single antenna systems. To accomplish high data rates over wireless links the use of multiple transmit and receive antennas is an alternative that does not require any extra bandwidth. It has the potential to address the unprecedented demand for wireless services, particularly for the Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS). This service supports downlink streaming and download-and-play type services to large groups of users. From the radio perspective, MBMS includes point-to-point (PtP) and point-to-multipoint (PtM) modes. New proposed MBMS related enhancements in the physical layer specifications and their effects on resource requirements are presented in this paper, such as the use of High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) to broadcast/multicast video streaming using the Deficit Round Robin (DRR) scheduler algorithm as a way to maintain an acceptable QoS for all the users. Other improvements, based on the use of MIMO including macro-diversity, are independent of the mode used and are dependent on deployment scenarios, but can yield substantial reduction in resource demand.     

一个基于速率控制的Internet视频流服务方案

由于视频流服务对于网络服务质量有着较高的要求,而现有的Internet所提供的是尽力而为的服务,无法保证数据的实时传输。该文设计了一个用于Internet上视频流的端到端传输方案.整个方案设计的目的是在网络本身缺乏服务质量保证的条件下尽可能达到最好的视频传输质量。根据可用带宽估计和网络信息反馈,系统对发送速率进行调整,并提供两种视频流服务:存储视频和实时视频。仿真结果表明方案的性能良好,能满足Internet视频流的需求。     

基于MPEG-21数字项改编的UMA系统

介绍了UMA系统的基本功能以及不同的视频格式和网络状况给UMA系统带来的失配问题.阐述了在UMA系统中引入MPEG-21的第7部分--数字项改编,来实现资源改编引擎以支持转换编码工具和资源改变引擎QoS的实现,从而解决失配问题.     

异构网络融合中的QoS与通信容量研究

使任何用户在任何时间任何地点都能获得具有服务质量（QoS）保证的服务,同时提高网络的覆盖范围和通信容量,是异构网络融合必须考虑并解决的关键问题。异构环境下具有QoS保证的关键技术研究以及通信容量分析是异构网络融合的重要研究内容。异构网络融合中具有QoS保证的关键技术研究主要在呼叫接入控制（CAC）算法、垂直切换算法、异构资源分配算法和网络选择算法等无线资源管理算法方面。在异构网络融合系统中使用新颖的多跳网络结构可以扩大网络的覆盖范围,降低传输功率,增加系统通信容量和吞吐量。     

一种新的支持多业务的CDMA网络可升降级动态带宽分配与优化策略

未来无线通信网络的主要发展方向是支持多种业务.在3GPP对UMTS的规范中,将业务按其属性对服务质量(Quality of Service,QoS)要求的不同分为4类:会话类、流媒体类、交互类和背景类,除话音业务外其余3种业务都是可变比特速率业务.对该网络用户资源分配(主要是带宽的分配)若采用传统的固定分配方法,必定陷入资源利用率低下和用户QoS得不到保障的两难境地.本文针对宽带CDMA网络,提出了一种针对无线多媒体业务的动态带宽分配与优化策略,在保证用户QoS的前提下,尽可能提高资源利用率.仿真结果表明,对比传统的网络资源管理策略,该策略大大改善了系统的性能,提高了系统资源利用率.     

A secure media streaming mechanism combining encryption,authentication, and transcoding

Technology advancements are allowing more and more new media applications and services to be delivered over the Internet. Many of these applications and services require flexibility in media distribution as well as security in protecting the confidentiality of media content and ensuring its authenticity. However, achieving flexibility and achieving security are conventionally conflicting with each other. This is mainly because that security is traditionally implemented in a media-unaware manner that naturally prevents flexible handling of the media content during its distribution. This paper shows that the two goals can be simultaneously accomplished by making an overall plan and taking into consideration all the factors: coding, encryption, packetization, authentication, and transcoding. It emphasizes sender authentication, which is a big security issue for media streaming, but somehow left unresolved. We propose a secure media streaming mechanism which supports media-aware encryption, sender authentication and secure transcoding. Multimedia Application Routing Server (MARS) is especially used as an intelligent mid-network proxy with the ability to perform tasks of sender authentication and secure transcoding. A prototype system for securely streaming AVS media using MARS demonstrates the performance, thus proves the practicality of the proposed secure media streaming mechanism.     

Novel Radio Link Buffer Management Schemes for End-User Multi-class Traffic in High Speed Packet Access Networks

The requirement to provide multimedia services with QoS support in mobile networks has led to standardization and deployment of high speed data access technologies such as the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) system. HSDPA improves downlink packet data and multimedia services support in WCDMA-based cellular networks. As is the trend in emerging wireless access technologies, HSDPA supports end-user multi-class sessions comprising parallel flows with diverse Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, such as real-time (RT) voice or video streaming concurrent with non real-time (NRT) data service being transmitted to the same user, with differentiated queuing at the radio link interface. Hence, in this paper we present and evaluate novel radio link buffer management schemes for QoS control of multimedia traffic comprising concurrent RT and NRT flows in the same HSDPA end-user session. The new buffer management schemes—Enhanced Time Space Priority (E-TSP) and Dynamic Time Space Priority (D-TSP)—are designed to improve radio link and network resource utilization as well as optimize end-to-end QoS performance of both RT and NRT flows in the end-user session. Both schemes are based on a Time-Space Priority (TSP) queuing system, which provides joint delay and loss differentiation between the flows by queuing (partially) loss tolerant RT flow packets for higher transmission priority but with restricted access to the buffer space, whilst allowing unlimited access to the buffer space for delay-tolerant NRT flow but with queuing for lower transmission priority. Experiments by means of extensive system-level HSDPA simulations demonstrates that with the proposed TSP-based radio link buffer management schemes, significant end-to-end QoS performance gains accrue to end-user traffic with simultaneous RT and NRT flows, in addition to improved resource utilization in the radio access network.     

Fixed versus adaptive admission control in direct broadcast Satellite networks with return channel systems

In this paper, as part of the adaptive resource allocation and management (ARAM) system (Alagoz, 2001), we propose an adaptive admission control strategy, which is aimed at combating link congestion and compromised channel conditions inherent in multimedia satellite networks. We present the performance comparisons of a traditional (fixed) admission control strategy versus the new adaptive admission control strategy for a direct broadcast satellite (DBS) network with return channel system (DBS-RCS). Performance comparisons are done using the ARAM simulator. The traffic mix in the simulator includes both available bit rate (ABR) traffic and variable bit rate (VBR) traffic. The dynamic channel conditions in the simulator reflect time variant error rates due to external effects such as rain. In order to maximize the resource utilization, both for fixed and adaptive approaches, assignment of the VBR services are determined based on the estimated statistical multiplexing and other system attributes, namely, video source, data transmission, and channel coding rates. In this paper, we focus on the admission control algorithms and assess their impact on quality-of-service (QoS) and forward link utilization of DBS-RCS. We show that the proposed adaptive admission control strategy is profoundly superior to the traditional admission control strategy with only a marginal decrease in QoS. Since the ARAM system has several parameters and strategies that play key roles in terms of the performance measures, their sensitivity analysis are also studied to verify the above foundations.     

Power‐efficient resource allocation with QoS guarantees for TDMA fading channels

This paper proposes two power‐efficient resource allocation policies with statistical delay Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees for uplink time‐division multiple access (TDMA) communication links. Specifically, the first policy aims at maximizing the system throughput while fulfilling the delay QoS and average power constraints, and the second policy is devised as an effort to minimize the total average power subject to individual delay QoS constraints. Convex optimization problems associated with the resource allocation policies are formulated based on a cross‐layer framework, where the queue at the data link layer is served by the resource allocation policy. By employing the Lagrangian duality theory and the dual decomposition theory, two subgradient iteration algorithms are developed to obtain the globally optimal solutions. The aforementioned resource allocation policies have been shown to be deterministic functions of delay QoS requirements and channel fading states. Moreover, numerical results are provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed resource allocation policies. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

融合网络的QoS问题探讨

通信网络的融合需要更完善的服务质量（QoS）体系。引入基于IP多媒体子系统（IMS）框架的QoS资源控制架构是解决融合网络QoS问题的方法。基于IMS框架的QoS控制架构将业务、QoS保证、资源控制和计费结合起来，是融合网络，特别是当前固网运营商急需的体系架构，能解决固网运营商当前运营过程中面临的问题，使其可以开展更多有QoS保证的多媒体业务，如3D游戏等，有助于运营商从通信带宽提供服务商向通信业务运营商转型。