Seamless Multimedia Delivery Within a Heterogeneous Wireless Networks Environment: Are We There Yet?

The increasing popularity of live video streaming from mobile devices, such as Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, Snapchat, etc. pressurizes the network operators to increase the capacity of their networks. However, a simple increase in system capacity will not be enough without considering the provisioning of quality of experience (QoE) as the basis for network control, customer loyalty, and retention rate and thus increase in network operators revenue. As QoE is gaining strong momentum especially with increasing users' quality expectations, the focus is now on proposing innovative solutions to enable QoE when delivering video content over heterogeneous wireless networks. In this context, this paper presents an overview of multimedia delivery solutions, identifies the problems and provides a comprehensive classification of related state-of-the-art approaches following three key directions: 1) adaptation; 2) energy efficiency; and 3) multipath content delivery. Discussions, challenges, and open issues on the seamless multimedia provisioning faced by the current and next generation of wireless networks are also provided

Seamless multimedia delivery within a heterogeneous wireless networks environment: are we there yet?

The increasing popularity of live video streaming from mobile devices such as Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, Snapchat, etc. pressurises the network operators to increase the capacity of their networks. However, a simple increase in system capacity will not be enough without considering the provisioning of Quality of Experience (QoE) as the basis for network control, customer loyalty and retention rate and thus increase in network operators revenue. As QoE is gaining strong momentum especially with increasing users’ quality expectations, the focus is now on proposing innovative solutions to enable QoE when delivering video content over heterogeneous wireless networks. In this context, this paper presents an overview of multimedia delivery solutions, identifies the problems and provides a comprehensive classification of related state-of-the-art approaches following three key directions: adaptation, energy efficiency and multipath content delivery. Discussions, challenges and open issues on the seamless multimedia provisioning faced by the current and next generation of wireless networks are also provided

Context-awareness for ubiquitous media service delivery in next generation networks

Les récentes avancées technologiques permettent désormais la fabrication de terminaux mobiles de plus en plus compacts et dotés de plusieurs interfaces réseaux. Le nouveau modèle de consommation de médias se résume par le concept "Anytime, Anywhere, Any Device" et impose donc de nouvelles exigences en termes de déploiement de services ubiquitaires. Cependant la conception et le developpement de réseaux ubiquitaires et convergents de nouvelles générations soulèvent un certain nombre de défis techniques. Les standards actuels ainsi que les solutions commerciales pourraient être affectés par le manque de considération du contexte utilisateur. Le ressenti de l'utilisateur concernant certains services multimédia tels que la VoIP et l'IPTV dépend fortement des capacités du terminal et des conditions du réseau d'accès. Cela incite les réseaux de nouvelles générations à fournir des services ubiquitaires adaptés à l'environnement de l'utilisateur optimisant par la même occasion ses resources. L'IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) est une architecture de nouvelle génération qui centralise l'accès aux services et permet la convergence des réseaux fixe/mobile. Néanmoins, l'évolution de l'IMS est nécessaire sur les points suivants :- l'introduction de la sensibilité au contexte utilisateur et de la PQoS (Perceived QoS) : L'architecture IMS ne prend pas en compte l'environnement de l'utilisateur, ses préférences et ne dispose pas d'un méchanisme de gestion de PQOS. Pour s'assurer de la qualité fournit à l'utilisateur final, des informations sur l'environnement de l'utilisateur ainsi que ses préférences doivent transiter en cœur de réseau afin d'y être analysés. Ce traitement aboutit au lancement du service qui sera adapté et optimisé aux conditions observées. De plus pour le service d'IPTV, les caractéristiques spatio-temporelles de la vidéo influent de manière importante sur la PQoS observée côté utilisateur. L'adaptation des services multimédias en fonction de l'évolution du contexte utilisateur et de la nature de la vidéo diffusée assure une qualité d'expérience à l'utilisateur et optimise par la même occasion l'utilisation des ressources en cœur de réseau.- une solution de mobilité efficace pour les services conversationnels tels que la VoIP : Les dernières publications 3GPP fournissent deux solutions de mobilité: le LTE proposeMIP comme solution de mobilité alors que l'IMS définit une mobilité basée sur le protocoleapplicatif SIP. Ces standards définissent le système de signalisation mais ne s'avancent pas sur la gestion du flux média lors du changement d'interface réseau. La deuxième section introduit une étude comparative détaillée des solutions de mobilité dans les NGNs.Notre première contribution est la spécification de l'architecture globale de notre plateforme IMS sensible au contexte utilisateur réalisée au sein du projet Européen ADAMANTIUM. Nous détaillons tout d'abord le serveur MCMS intelligent placé dans la couche application de l'IMS. Cet élément récolte les informations de qualité de services à différents équipements réseaux et prend la décision d'une action sur l'un de ces équipements. Ensuite nous définissons un profil utilisateur permettant de décrire son environnement et de le diffuser en coeur de réseau. Une étude sur la prédiction de satisfaction utilisateur en fonction des paramètres spatio-temporels de la vidéo a été réalisée afin de connaître le débit idéal pour une PQoS désirée.Notre deuxième contribution est l'introduction d'une solution de mobilité adaptée aux services conversationnels (VoIP) tenant compte du contexte utilisateur. Notre solution s'intègre à l'architecture IMS existante de façon transparente et permet de réduire le temps de latence du handover. Notre solution duplique les paquets de VoIP sur les deux interfaces actives pendant le temps de la transition. Parallèlement, un nouvel algorithme de gestion de mémoire tampon améliore la qualité d'expérience pour le service de VoIP.The latest advances in technology have already defied Moore s law. Thanks to research and industry, hand-held devices are composed of high processing embedded systems enabling the consumption of high quality services. Furthermore, recent trends in communication drive users to consume media Anytime, Anywhere on Any Device via multiple wired and wireless network interfaces. This creates new demands for ubiquitous and high quality service provision management. However, defining and developing the next generation of ubiquitous and converged networks raise a number of challenges. Currently, telecommunication standards do not consider context-awareness aspects for network management and service provisioning. The experience felt by the end-user consuming for instance Voice over IP (VoIP) or Internet Protocol TeleVision (IPTV) services varies depending mainly on user preferences, device context and network resources. It is commonly held that Next Generation Network (NGN) should deliver personalized and effective ubiquitous services to the end user s Mobile Node (MN) while optimizing the network resources at the network operator side. IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a standardized NGN framework that unifies service access and allows fixed/mobile network convergence. Nevertheless IMS technology still suffers from a number of confining factors that are addressed in this thesis; amongst them are two main issues :The lack of context-awareness and Perceived-QoS (PQoS):-The existing IMS infrastructure does not take into account the environment of the user ,his preferences , and does not provide any PQoS aware management mechanism within its service provisioning control system. In order to ensure that the service satisfies the consumer, this information need to be sent to the core network for analysis. In order to maximize the end-user satisfaction while optimizing network resources, the combination of a user-centric network management and adaptive services according to the user s environment and network conditions are considered. Moreover, video content dynamics are also considered as they significantly impact on the deduced perceptual quality of IPTV services. -The lack of efficient mobility mechanism for conversational services like VoIP :The latest releases of Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) provide two types of mobility solutions. Long-Term Evolution (LTE) uses Mobile IP (MIP) and IMS uses Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) mobility. These standards are focusing on signaling but none of them define how the media should be scheduled in multi-homed devices. The second section introduces a detailed study of existing mobility solutions in NGNs. Our first contribution is the specification of the global context-aware IMS architecture proposed within the European project ADAptative Management of mediA distributioN based on saTisfaction orIented User Modeling (ADAMANTIUM). We introduce the innovative Multimedia Content Management System (MCMS) located in the application layer of IMS. This server combines the collected monitoring information from different network equipments with the data of the user profile and takes adaptation actions if necessary. Then, we introduce the User Profile (UP) management within the User Equipment (UE) describing the end-user s context and facilitating the diffusion of the end-user environment towards the IMS core network. In order to optimize the network usage, a PQoS prediction mechanism gives the optimal video bit-rate according to the video content dynamics. Our second contribution in this thesis is an efficient mobility solution for VoIP service within IMS using and taking advantage of user context. Our solution uses packet duplication on both active interfaces during handover process. In order to leverage this mechanism, a new jitter buffer algorithm is proposed at MN side to improve the user s quality of experience. Furthermore, our mobility solution integrates easily to the existing IMS platform.BORDEAUX1-Bib.electronique (335229901) / SudocSudocFranceF

Network-Assisted Handover for Heterogeneous Wireless Networks using IEEE 802.21

The IEEE 802.21 is a standard for enabling handover in heterogeneous wireless networks. Published in January 2009, it defines protocols and messages for mobile-to-node and node-to-node communication in a technology-neutral and flexible manner. The need arises because of the widespread diffusion of different technologies for wireless communications (e.g., WiFi, WiMAX, LTE) coexisting in the same geographical area. Even though the number of multi-radio multi-technology mobile devices is increasing significantly, there are no open solutions in the market to enable efficient inter-technology handover. As is often the case with communication standards, the structure of the required components, the procedures, and the algorithms are left unspecified by the IEEE 802.21 standard so as to promote competion by differentiation of equipment capabilities and services. The contribution of this thesis is two-fold: i) a design and an implemenation of the Media Independent Information Service (MIIS) server; and, ii) a solution to enable network-assisted handover using the IEEE 802.21 standard, aimed at reducing the handover latency and the energy consumption of mobile devices due to scanning. The MIIS server has been fully implemented in C++ under Linux. In order to perform testbed evaluations, all the required components have been implemented, as well, within an open source framework for IEEE 802.21 called ODTONE. Modifications to the latter have been performed for optimization and fine tuning, and for extending those functional modules needed but not fully implemented. For a realistic evaluation, Linux-based embedded COTS devices have been used, equipped with multiple IEEE 802.11a and IEEE 802.11g wireless network interface cards. This has required additional development for kernel/user space binding and hardware control. Testbed results are reported to show the effectiveness of the proposed solution, also proving the MIIS server scalability

Enhanced transport protocols for real time and streaming applications on wireless links

Real time communications have, in the last decade, become a highly relevant component of Internet applications and services, with both interactive communications and streamed content being used in developed and developing countries alike. Due to the proliferation of mobile devices, wireless media is becoming the means of transmitting a large part of this increasingly important real time communications traffic. Wireless has also become an important technology in developing countries, with satellite communications being increasingly deployed for traffic backhaul and ubiquitous connection to the Internet. A number of issues need to be addressed in order to have an acceptable service quality for real time communications in wireless environments. In addition to this, the availability of multiple wireless interfaces on mobile devices presents an opportunity to improve and further exacerbates the issues already present on single wireless links. Therefore in this thesis, we consider improvements to transport protocols for real time communications and streaming services to address these problems and we provide the following contributions. To deal with wireless link issues of errors and delay, we propose two enhancements. First, an improvement technique for Datagram Congestion Control Protocol CCID4 for long delay wireless (e.g. satellite) links, demonstrating significant performance improvements for Voice over IP applications. To deal with link errors, we have proposed, implemented and evaluated an erasure coding based packet error correction approach for Concurrent Multipath Transfer extension of Stream Control Transport Protocol data transport over multiple wireless paths. We have identified packet reordering as a major cause of performance degradation in both single and multi-path transport protocols for real time communications and media streaming. We have proposed a dynamically resizable buffer based solution to mitigate this problem within the DCCP protocol. For improving the performance of multi-path transport protocols over dissimilar network paths, we have proposed a delay aware packet scheduling scheme, which significantly improves the performance of multimedia and bulk data transfer with CMT-SCTP in heterogeneous multi-path network scenarios. Finally, we have developed a tool for online streaming video quality evaluation experiments, comprising a real-time cross-layer video streaming technique implemented within an open-source H.264 video encoder tool called x264

Actas da 10ª Conferência sobre Redes de Computadores

Universidade do MinhoCCTCCentro AlgoritmiCisco SystemsIEEE Portugal Sectio

Impact of regulatory aspects on 5G mobile communication systems

The fifth generation of mobile communication networks generally known as 5G is a technology that, if we read anything about it we can arrive to the conclusion that it can be a revolution in many aspects. Starting with the great change that the telephone introduced, followed by the great improvements that the mobile phones carried along with them and finally internet and broadband access from any part of the world with a pocket device, we arrive to a time where 5G not only will it improve the existing technologies but it will allow the development of new inventions such as Internet of Things (IoT) that up to the date is reduced to various experiments and trials. The fifth generation of mobile communication systems will allow the development of applications, data models, data analysis at very high speeds, sensor measurements, and data transmissions instantly and a very long list of other things that will result in a revolution in one hand for the people’s lives and in the other to the markets and the way the companies carry out their business models and their internal and external general management. People’s quality of life will be affected substantially thanks to the establishment of 5G. This will be achieved thanks to the high speeds and the characteristics that 5G includes, and it will allow, for example, that a refrigerator can inform its owner about what products are needed or about what food is about to expire. This simple example is only one of many others that we can find when talking about 5G. Nonetheless, in order to be able to enjoy these advantages that 5G incorporates, it is necessary to conduct a development and deployment in an agreed upon way between all the different organisms and bearing in mind the regulatory aspects and the legislation valid and that needs to be developed in order to have a correct deployment. To do this, the regulatory organisms, and the commissions of the different countries have to agree between them and investigate what is the best way to provide the best standards, and to ease and speed up the deployments and start-ups of this new technology. After developing a detail study of the current requirements, objectives and the legislation and standardization, as well as the state of art of the technologies that provide us with the services that we enjoy nowadays, I have studied the barriers and drivers for the deployment of 5G. Finally, and after this previous study, I have analysed the possible deployments for this technology and how will it affect to the economic and social environment the use of these types of mobile communications. At the same time I have arrived to the final conclusions that 5G will be a complete revolution and anything that enables and eases the implementation has to be welcome.La quinta generación de redes de telecomunicaciones móviles comúnmente conocida como 5G es una tecnología de la que, si leemos cualquier información, llegaremos a la conclusión de que puede suponer una revolución en muchos aspectos. Comenzando por el gran cambio que supuso la invención del teléfono, seguida por la evidente y alta mejora que introdujo el teléfono móvil y finalmente la conexión a internet y el acceso de banda ancha desde cualquier parte del mundo con un dispositivo de bolsillo, llegamos a un momento en el que el 5G no solo mejorará las tecnologías ya existentes sino que permitirá desarrollar ideas tales como el internet de las cosas que, a día de hoy, se reducen a, varios experimentos y pruebas. El 5G permitirá el desarrollo de aplicaciones, modelos de datos, análisis de datos a altas velocidades, lecturas de sensores y transmisión de datos de forma instantánea y una larga lista de mejoras más que resultará en una revolución por una parte de la vida de las personas y por otra de los mercados y de la forma en la que las empresas llevarán a cabo sus modelos de negocio y en general su gestión externa e interna. La calidad de vida de las personas se verá afectada de forma sustancial gracias a la implantación del 5G. Esto se conseguirá debido a que las altas velocidades y las características que incorpora el 5G permitirán que, por ejemplo, una nevera avise a su dueño de aquello que falte en su interior, o que le informe de aquellos productos que están a punto de caducar. Este simple ejemplo solo es uno de todos los posibles que se pueden encontrar a la hora de hablar del 5G. Sin embargo, para poder llegar a disfrutar de todas las ventajas que el 5G aporta, es necesario llevar a cabo un desarrollo y un despliegue de forma conjunta entre los diferentes organismos, y teniendo en cuenta la normativa y legislación vigente y que se necesita desarrollar, para que este despliegue sea correcto. Para ello, los organismos regulatorios y las comisiones de diferentes países, deben ponerse de acuerdo e investigar cuál será la mejor forma de proporcionar los mejores estándares y facilitar y acelerar los despliegues y puestas en marcha de esta nueva tecnología. Después de llevar a cabo un estudio detallado sobre los requisitos, objetivos y la normativa y estandarización actual, así como el estado del arte de las tecnologías que hoy nos proporcionan los servicios de los que disfrutamos, se han estudiado las barreras y los aspectos favorecedores para la implantación del 5G. Finalmente, y tras este previo estudio, se han detallado los posibles despliegues para esta tecnología y se ha estudiado como afectará al entorno económico y social la utilización de este tipo de redes de comunicaciones móviles. A su vez, se han llegado a las conclusiones finales de que el 5G supondrá toda una revolución, y que todo aquello que favorezca su despliegue e implantación, debe ser bienvenido.Ingeniería Telemátic

Calculating a single figure of merit (SFOM) in LTE: a predictor of quality of experience (QoE)

An exigent assignment for network planners of modern mobile systems technologies like Long Term Evolution (LTE) is to predict the subscriber’s satisfaction during the delivery of services over the wireless network and their satisfaction level during journeys such as freeway and train journeys. There is great need for a procedure and for a simulation software tool based on a methodology that would assist the mobile network planners in overcoming this arduous task. This thesis proposes and implements a new and novel solution to the aforementioned problem by proposing a method of calculating a Single Figure of Merit (SFOM), which assesses the user’s Quality of Experience (QoE) based on the technical measure of the Quality of Service (QoS) reported by the network. The proposed SFOM reduces the number of metrics involved in calculation in comparison to the earlier QoE computation approaches. The resulting SFOM proves to be a good indicator of the user’s QoE with the network for the complete duration of a journey along pre-defined and random paths. The SFOM calculation method has been implemented as an addition to an open-source Matlab-based LTE System Level Simulator. This thesis also proposes and implements two novel special event walking models, named as: “Starburst Walking Model” (e.g. people gathering or leaving a sports arena) and the “Trainload Walking Model” (e.g. trainload of people moving from one point to another) which are a novel addition to the mobility management aspects of the simulator. Network planners can benefit from this improved simulation tool to evaluate different arrangements and position mobile assets, with a view to optimizing the user’s experience and minimizing capital costs. The work supplementing the open-source Matlab-based LTE System Level Simulator’s functionality was published at the following IEEE conference: M. W. Baig and P. J. Radcliffe, “Pragmatic Network Layouts in 3GPP LTE”, 2010 2nd International Conference on Information and Multimedia Technology (ICIMT 2010) Making use of the improved functional ability of the simulator, a new and novel methodology which facilitates comparing alternative network topologies and assigns SFOM to random or predefined paths in a LTE environment was published at the following IEEE Conference: M. W. Baig and P. J. Radcliffe, “Assigning a Single Figure of Merit (SFOM) to a Specified Path in a LTE Network”, 2011 International Conference on Information and Computer Networks (ICICN 2011