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.     

Adaptive Rate Control and QoS Provisioning in Direct Broadcast Satellite Networks

Adaptive rate control, if properly employed, is an effective mechanism to sustain acceptable levels of Quality of Service (QoS) in wireless networks where channel and traffic conditions vary over time. In this paper we present an adaptive rate (source and channel) control mechanism, developed as part of an Adaptive Resource Allocation and Management (ARAM) algorithm, for use in Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) networks. The algorithm performs admission control and dynamically adjusts traffic source rate and Forward Error Correction (FEC) rate in a co-ordinated fashion to satisfy QoS requirements. To analyze its performance, we have simulated the adaptive algorithm with varying traffic flows and channel conditions. The traffic flow is based on a variable bit rate (VBR) source model that represents Motion Picture Expert Group (MPEG) traffic fluctuations while the DBS channel model is based on a two-state Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel. For measures of performance, the simulator quantifies throughput, frame loss due to congestion during transmission as well as QoS variations due to channel (FEC) and source (MPEG compression and data transmission) rate changes. To show the advantage of the adaptive FEC mechanism, we also present the performance results when fixed FEC rates are employed. The results indicate significant throughput and/or quality gains are possible when the FEC/source pairs are adjusted properly in co-ordination with source rate changes.     

Simulation analyses of weighted fair bandwidth‐on‐demand (WFBoD) process for broadband multimedia geostationary satellite systems

Advanced resource management schemes are required for broadband multimedia satellite networks to provide efficient and fair resource allocation while delivering guaranteed quality of service (QoS) to a potentially very large number of users. Such resource management schemes must provide well‐defined service segregation to the different traffic flows of the satellite network, and they must be integrated with some connection admission control (CAC) process at least for the flows requiring QoS guarantees. Weighted fair bandwidth‐on‐demand (WFBoD) is a resource management process for broadband multimedia geostationary (GEO) satellite systems that provides fair and efficient resource allocation coupled with a well‐defined MAC‐level QoS framework (compatible with ATM and IP QoS frameworks) and a multi‐level service segregation to a large number of users with diverse characteristics. WFBoD is also integrated with the CAC process. In this paper, we analyse via extensive simulations the WFBoD process in a bent‐pipe satellite network. Our results show that WFBoD can be used to provide guaranteed QoS for both non‐real‐time and real‐time variable bit rate (VBR) flows. Our results also show how to choose the main parameters of the WFBoD process depending on the system parameters and on the traffic characteristics of the flows. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic reservation TDMA protocol for wireless ATM networks

A dynamic reservation time division multiple access (DR-TDMA) control protocol that extends the capabilities of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks over the wireless channel is proposed in this paper. DR-TDMA combines the advantages of distributed access and centralized control for transporting constant bit rate (CBR), variable bit rate (VBR), and available bit rate (ABR) traffic efficiently over a wireless channel. The contention slots access for reservation requests is governed by the framed pseudo-Bayesian priority (FPBP) Aloha protocol that provides different access priorities to the control packets in order to improve the quality-of-service (QoS) offered to time sensitive connections. DR-TDMA also features a novel integrated resource allocation algorithm that efficiently schedules terminals' reserved access to the wireless ATM channel by considering their requested bandwidth and QoS. Integration of CBR, voice, VBR, data, and control traffic over the wireless ATM channel using the proposed DR-TDMA protocol is considered in this paper. Simulation results are presented to show that the protocol respects the required QoS of each traffic category while providing a highly efficient utilization of approximately 96% for the wireless ATM channel     

Supporting multimedia streaming and best‐effort data transmission over IEEE 802.11e EDCA

As demand for broadband multimedia wireless services increases, improving quality of service (QoS) of the widely deployed IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN) has become crucial. To support the QoS required by a wide range of applications, the IEEE 802.11 working group has defined a new standard: IEEE 802.11e. In this paper, we propose a measurement‐based dynamic media time allocation (MBDMTA) scheme combined with a concatenating window scheme to support real‐time variable bit rate (rt‐VBR) video and best‐effort (BE) data transmission using IEEE 802.11e enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA). To provide the QoS guarantee for rt‐VBR video, the proposed MBDMTA scheme dynamically assigns channel time to the rt‐VBR video based on the estimate of the required network resources. On the other hand, the concatenating window scheme controls the contention window (CW) ranges of different priority flows such that real‐time services always have higher channel access probability, thus achieving the capability of preemptive priorities. In addition, the concatenating window scheme preserves fairness among flows of the same class and attains high channel utilization under different network conditions. Simulation results demonstrate that the throughput and delay performance improve significantly for the transmission of rt‐VBR video and BE traffic as compared to those for the 802.11e EDCA specification. It is also revealed that combining the two proposed schemes provides seamless integration and reliable transmission of digital video and data service within the 802.11e EDCA framework. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A hierarchical HFC network with QoS guaranteed traffic policy

The rapid growing of the Internet makes multimedia and broadband services closer to the users. For people at home, two typical networks are available to access the Internet: telephone network and CATV network. This paper presents a hierarchical tree-based structure for the hybrid fiber-cable (HFC) network where the traditional HFC network is partitioned into segments. Each segment is coordinated by a central traffic controller (CTC). A reservation-based traffic policy is also proposed for the CTC to schedule the data transmissions within the segment to provide guaranteed QoS, such as constant bit rate (CBR) service and variable bit rate (VBR) service. The CTC also furnishes the bridging function so that local traffic within the controlled segment is filtered to save the network bandwidth. Based on the segmentation concept and filtering function, the bandwidth can be reused efficiently and the system performance is improved significantly. Simulation results indicate that the proposed hierarchical HFC network performs much better than the traditional HFC network in terms of delay, delay jitter and channel utilization. Through the proposed traffic policy, the hierarchical HFC network also offers guaranteed QoS for the users     

Design and evaluation of an efficient traffic control scheme for integrated voice,video, and data over asynchronous transfer mode networks: Explicit allowed rate algorithm

Asychronous transfer mode (ATM) networks are high‐speed networks with guaranteed quality of service. The main cause of congestion in ATM networks is over utilization of physical bandwidth. Unlike constant bit‐rate (CBR) traffic, the bandwidth reserved by variable bit‐rate (VBR) traffic is not fully utilized at all instances. Hence, this unused bandwidth is allocated to available bit‐rate (ABR) traffic. As the bandwidth used by VBR traffic changes, available bandwidth for ABR traffic varies; i.e., available bandwidth for ABR traffic is inversely proportional to the bandwidth used by the VBR traffic. Based on this fact, a rate‐based congestion control algorithm, Explicit Allowed Rate Algorithm (EARA), is presented in this paper. EARA is compared with Proportional Rate Control Algorithm (PRCA) and Explicit Rate Indication Congestion Avoidance Algorithm (ERICA), in both LAN and WAN environments. Simulations of all three algorithms are conducted under both congestion and fairness configurations with simultaneous generation of CBR, rt‐VBR, nrt‐VBR and ABR traffic. The results show that, with very small over‐head on the switch, EARA significantly decreases the required buffer space and improves the network throughput. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一种无线ATM网络的MAC协议

主要研究了无线ATM网络对MAC的需求，并介绍了适用于无线ATM的一种新的MAC方案。该协议支持不同类型信息传输，比如恒定比特率（CBR），可变比特率（VBR），可用比特率（ABR），未指定比特率（UBR）。另外此协议还提供了对宽带ATM主干网的无缝连接。同时也支持与ATM相关的QoS级别。对于该协议关注的各种情况的主要原理进行了讨论。     

Supporting multi-user real-time VBR video service using dynamic bandwidth management based on prediction

Real-time variable bit rate (VBR) video is expected to take a significant portion of multimedia applications. However, plentiful challenges to VBR video service provision have been raised for its characteristic of high traffic abruptness. To support multi-user real-time VBR video transmission with high bandwidth utilization and satisfied quality of service (QoS), this article proposes a practical dynamic bandwidth management scheme. This scheme forecasts future media rate of VBR video by employing time-domain adaptive linear predictor and using media delivery index (MDI) as both QoS measurement and complementary management reference. In addition, to support multi-user application, an adjustment priorities classified strategy is also put forward. Finally, a test-bed based on this management scheme is established. The experimental results demonstrate that the scheme proposed in this article is efficient with bandwidth utilization increased by 20%-60% compared to a fixed service rate and QoS guaranteed.     

A bandwidth allocation/sharing/extension protocol for multimediaover IEEE 802.11 ad hoc wireless LANs

We propose a novel bandwidth allocation/sharing/extension (DBASE) protocol to support both asynchronous traffic and multimedia traffic with the characteristics of variable bit rate (VBR) and constant bit rate (CBR) over IEEE 802.11 ad hoc wireless local area networks. The overall quality of service (QoS) will be guaranteed by DBASE. The designed DBASE protocol will reserve bandwidth for real-time stations based on a fair and efficient allocation. Besides, the proposed DBASE is still compliant with the IEEE 802.11 standard. The performance of DBASE is evaluated by analysis and simulations. Simulations show that the DBASE is able to provide almost 90% channel utilization and low packet loss due to delay expiry for real-time multimedia services     

A bandwidth assignment algorithm on a satellite channel for VBR traffic

Variable bit rate (VBR) video is currently by far the most interesting and challenging real-time application. A VBR encoder attempts to keep the quality of video output constant and at the same time reduces bandwidth requirements, since only a minimum amount of information has to be transferred. On the other hand, as VBR video traffic is both highly variable and delay-sensitive, high-speed networks (e.g. ATM) are generally implemented by assigning peak rate bandwidths to VBR video applications. This approach may, however, be inefficient in a satellite network based on a TDMA scheme. To overcome this problem, we have designed a demand assignment satellite bandwidth allocation algorithm in TDMA, named V2L-DA (VBR 2-Level Demand Assignment), which manages the VBR video traffic according to a dynamic bandwidth allocation algorithm. In this paper we discuss how to tune the proposed algorithm in order to optimize network utilization when MPEG-1 VBR video traffic is being transmitted. Our results indicate that most of the time only 40% of the peak rate bandwidth is needed to satisfy the VBR source, so the remaining 60% of the peak rate bandwidth can be used to transmit the datagram traffic queued in the network stations. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High performing multimedia transmission approach based on QoS support and admission control over IEEE 802.11e networks

Hybrid coordination function controlled channel access (HCCA) is a medium to enhance quality of service (QoS) via the IEEE 802.11e standard. The main limitation of HCAA is that it is only efficient for constant bit rate (CBR) applications. This is due to the nature of its scheduler that allocates transmission opportunities (TXOPs) based on traffic stream (TS) specifications (TSPECs) that are determined during the traffic setup time. Variable bit rate (VBR) traffics used in HCCA have nondeterministic profile, making it not optimally and efficiently supported by HCCA. The result of this inefficiency is a deterioration of the transmission performance of multimedia data as well as a drop in the number of served QoS video traffics. We propose a novel approach to deal with this issue, which is the feedback‐based admission control unit (FACU). FACU works by optimizing the usage of extra bandwidth to ensure optimal transmission performance of multimedia data. FACU achieves this by exploiting piggybacked information concerning sequential video frames in order to accurately assign the TXOP. The proposed approach is evaluated by utilizing various video sequences. It is demonstrated that FACU maximizes the overall number of video streams and optimizes the overall usage of the network without having any adverse effects on the QoS constraints determined.     

Design of a fair bandwidth allocation policy for VBR traffic in ATMnetworks

Since real-time variable bit rate (VBR) traffic is inherently bursty, dynamic bandwidth allocation is necessary for ATM streams that carry VBR traffic. In order to provide quality-of-services (QoS) guarantees and to reduce the computational complexity, an hybrid of guaranteed and dynamic adaptive allocation scheme requires to be implemented. Typical dynamic allocations to competing streams are done in the form of linear proportions to the bandwidth requirements. We show that during temporary link congestion such proportional arrangements can give rise to unequal queue growth and, subsequently, degraded QoS. This is found to be true even for streams that belong to the same VBR class and share identical long term traffic characteristics and QoS requirements. In this paper, four allocation algorithms are presented and analyzed in terms of their fairness and QoS potential for real-time VBR traffic. We propose and show that a novel allocation strategy, termed Minmax, solves the mentioned problem of unfairness within a class. By maintaining a fair distribution of buffer length across the streams of a class, the proposed policy can achieve better and fairer QoS performance compared to the traditional methods. We present analytical results, proofs and a simulation study of the described algorithms. Four allocation policies for handling MPEG VBR video streams are simulated in the context of a wireless ATM (WATM) medium access control. The results show that in certain scenarios, the Minmax strategy can reduce losses by an order of magnitude, while decreasing delays substantially     

一种基于IEEE802.15.3 MAC协议的动态资源分配算法

介绍了IEEE802.15.3 MAC协议及其QoS机制,分析了超帧中的CAP,针对实时VBR业务流,提出了一种动态资源分配算法,在性能上与平均资源分配算法进行了比较和分析,通过仿真验证了此动态资源分配算法能有效降低实时VBR码流的丢帧率,提高系统传输的QoS.     

Dynamic bandwidth allocation scheme for multiple real‐time VBR videos over ATM networks

This paper considers VBR transmission of multiple real‐time videos over ATM networks. Multiple real‐time VBR video sources are multiplexed into an ATM switch to transmit cells into the network. Given the ATM switch capacity, the problem is to dynamically allocate the required channel bandwidth for each video source such that the encoder buffer occupancy is maintained at a target level. To solve the problem, we present a mathematical formulation and propose an algorithm for the bandwidth allocation. To allocate a suitable bandwidth at a given control period, QoS demand levels and traffic characteristics of the video sources are considered. The performance of the proposed scheme is examined in terms of the number of encoder rate controls required and the gap between the target and the current buffer occupancy at each control period. Numerical results are analyzed for different QoS environments as well as different levels of target buffer, ATM switch capacity, buffer size and leaky bucket token rate. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Efficient Traffic Scheduling for Real Time VBR MPEG Video Transmission Over DOCSIS-Based HFC Networks

Data-over-cable service interface specifications (DOCSIS), the de facto standard in the cable industry, defines a scheduling service called real-time polling service (rtPS) to provision quality of service (QoS) transmission of real-time variable bit rate (VBR) videos. However, the rtPS service intrinsically has high latency, which makes it not applicable to real-time traffic transport. In this paper, we present a novel traffic scheduling algorithm for hybrid fiber coax (HFC) networks based on DOCSIS that aims to provide QoS for real-time VBR video transmissions. The novel characteristics of this algorithm, as compared to those described in published literatures, include 1) it predicts the bandwidth requirements for future traffic using a novel traffic predictor designed to provide simple yet accurate online prediction; and 2) it takes the attributes of physical (PHY) layer, media access control (MAC) layer and application layer into consideration. In addition, the proposed traffic scheduling algorithm is completely compatible with the DOCSIS specification and does not require any protocol changes. We analyze the performance of the proposed traffic predictor and traffic scheduling algorithm using real-life MPEG video traces. Simulation results indicate that 1) the proposed traffic predictor significantly outperforms previously published techniques with respect to the prediction error and 2) Compared with several existing scheduling algorithms, the proposed traffic scheduling algorithm surpasses other mechanisms in terms of channel utilization, buffer usage, packet delay, and packet loss rate.     

Guaranteed quality-of-service wireless access to ATM networks

We study the problem of wireless access to asynchronous transfer modes (ATMs). We consider three classes of ATM sources: constant bit rate (CBR), variable bit rate (VBR), and available bit rate (ABR). We propose a polling scheme with nonpreemptive priority. Under such a scheme, we derive sufficient conditions such that all the CBR sources satisfy their jitter constraints and all the VBR sources satisfy their delay constraints. The remaining bandwidth is used by the ABR sources, for which we adapt a random access scheme proposed by Chen and Lee (1994). For this random access scheme, we derive the throughput-offer load characteristic, and thus the capacity. Based on this, we propose adaptive random access schemes that track the offer load to its optimal value. Our simulations show that our adaptive schemes maintain a high throughput with respect to the whole range of system load     

Smoothing, statistical multiplexing, and call admission control forstored video

Variable bit-rate (VBR) compressed video is known to exhibit significant, multiple-time-scale rate variability. A number of researchers have considered transmitting stored video from server to a client using smoothing algorithms to reduce this rate variability. These algorithms exploit client buffering capabilities and determine a “smooth” rate transmission schedule, while ensuring that a client buffer neither overflows nor underflows. We investigate how video smoothing impacts the statistical multiplexing gains available with such traffic, and we show that a significant amount of statistical multiplexing gains can still be achieved. We then examine the implication of these results on network resource management and call admission control when transmitting smoothed stored video using VBR service with statistical quality-of-service (QoS) guarantees. Specifically, we present a uniform call admission control scheme based on a Chernoff bound method that uses a simple, novel traffic model requiring only a few parameters. This scheme provides an easy and flexible mechanism for supporting multiple VBR service classes with different QoS requirements. We evaluate the efficacy of the call admission control scheme over a set of MPEG-1 coded video tracts