Network-supported Rate Control Mechanism for Multicast Streaming Media

Layered Multicasting with layered source coding scheme enables efficient distribution of real-time streaming media over heterogeneous networks' such as the Internet. In layered multicast, rate control is required to cope with congestion quickly because packet losses in a layer with higher priority lead greater degradation of received quality. In addition, rate control for layered multicast is required to assure fair bandwidth allocation among competitive layered multicast sessions at a congested link independent of their start time. In this paper, we present a novel rate control scheme for layered multicast, called Network-supported Layered Multicast (NLM). In NLM, routers' distributed within the network support rate control. NLM avoids' packet losses on a layer with high priority and a&ieves fair bandwidth allocation by filtering and signaling. A router filters' a layer with low priority when it detects' congestion, or when it is informed that the layer is needless by signaling. Simulation results' show NLM offers' significant advantages compared with receiver-driven rate control