Deploying AL-FEC protection with online algorithms for multicast services over cellular networks

Reliability control is a key concern on the evolution of mobile multicast services. To this direction, the use of forward error correction (FEC) on the application layer is widely adopted in several mobile multicast standards. FEC is a feedback free error control method, where the transmitter introduces in advance redundant information within the source data to enable receivers recovering arbitrary data erasures. On multicast delivery where retransmission-based error recovery methods are not efficient, the most suitable error control method is the use of application layer forward error correction (AL-FEC) codes. In this work, we introduce novel AL-FEC deployment policies over mobile multicast environments utilizing online algorithms. We aim at the efficient application of AL-FEC protection with RaptorQ codes over multicast delivery in the context of competitive analysis. We provide a competitiveness analysis model of AL-FEC application over mobile multicast environments. Furthermore, we propose two online algorithms adjusting the introduced redundancy of AL-FEC protection according to several FEC encoding parameters and constraints of mobile multicast delivery.