The CASPER user-centric approach for advanced service provisioning in mobile networks

Abstract This paper presents an overview of the project CASPER, 1 a 4-year Marie Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) project running between 2016 and 2020, describing its objectives, approach, architecture, tools and key achievements. CASPER combines academic and industrial forces towards leveraging the expected benefits of Quality of Experience (QoE) exploitation in future networks. In order to achieve that, a QoE orchestrator has been proposed which implements the basic functionalities of QoE monitoring, estimation and management. With means of simulation and testbed emulation, CASPER has managed to develop a proprietary SDN Controller, which implements QoE-based traffic rerouting for the challenging scenario of HTTP adaptive video streaming, leading to more stable and higher QoE scores compared to a state-of-the-art SDN Controller implementation

Towards a scalable video interactivity solution over the IMS

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-76).Rapid increase in bandwidth and the interactive and scalability features of the Internet provide a precedent for a converged platform that will support interactive television. Next Generation Network platforms such as the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) support Quality of Service (QoS), fair charging and possible integration with other services for the deployment of IPTV services. IMS architecture supports the use of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for session control and the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) for media control. This study aims to investigate video interactivity designs over the Internet using an evaluation framework to examine the performance of both SIP and RTSP protocols over the IMS over different access networks. It proposes a Three Layered Video Interactivity Framework (TLVIF) to reduce the video processing load on a server

Streaming and User Behaviour in Omnidirectional Videos

Omnidirectional videos (ODVs) have gone beyond the passive paradigm of traditional video, offering higher degrees of immersion and interaction. The revolutionary novelty of this technology is the possibility for users to interact with the surrounding environment, and to feel a sense of engagement and presence in a virtual space. Users are clearly the main driving force of immersive applications and consequentially the services need to be properly tailored to them. In this context, this chapter highlights the importance of the new role of users in ODV streaming applications, and thus the need for understanding their behaviour while navigating within ODVs. A comprehensive overview of the research efforts aimed at advancing ODV streaming systems is also presented. In particular, the state-of-the-art solutions under examination in this chapter are distinguished in terms of system-centric and user-centric streaming approaches: the former approach comes from a quite straightforward extension of well-established solutions for the 2D video pipeline while the latter one takes the benefit of understanding users’ behaviour and enable more personalised ODV streaming

COIN : a customisable, incentive driven video on demand framework for low-cost IPTV services

There has been a significant rise in the provision of television and video services over IP (IPTV) in recent years. Increasing network capacity and falling bandwidth costs have made it both technically and economically feasible for service providers to deliver IPTV services. Several telecommunications (telco) operators worldwide are rolling out IPTV solutions and view IPTV as a major service differentiator and alternative revenue source. The main challenge that IPTV providers currently face, however, is the increasingly congested television service provider market, which also includes Internet Television. IPTV solutions therefore need strong service differentiators to succeed. IPTV solutions can doubtlessly sell much faster if they are more affordable or low-cost. Advertising has already been used in many service sectors to help lower service costs, including traditional broadcast television. This thesis therefore explores the role that advertising can play in helping to lower the cost of IPTV services and to incentivise IPTV billing. Another approach that IPTV providers can use to help sell their product is by addressing the growing need for control by today's multimedia users. This thesis will therefore explore the varied approaches that can be used to achieve viewer focused IPTV implementations. To further lower the cost of IPTV services, telcos can also turn to low-cost, open source platforms for service delivery. The adoption of low-cost infrastructure by telcos can lead to reduced Capital Expenditure (CAPEX), which in turn can lead to lower service fees, and ultimately to higher subscriptions and revenue. Therefore, in this thesis, the author proposes a CustOmisable, INcentive (COIN) driven Video on Demand (VoD) framework to be developed and deployed using the Mobicents Communication Platform, an open source service creation and execution platform. The COIN framework aims to provide a viewer focused, economically competitive service that combines the potential cost savings of using free and open source software (FOSS), with an innovative, incentive-driven billing approach. This project will also aim to evaluate whether the Mobicents Platform is a suitable service creation and execution platform for the proposed framework. Additionally, the proposed implementation aims to be interoperable with other IPTV implementations, hence shall follow current IPTV standardisation architectures and trends. The service testbed and its implementation are described in detail and only free and open source software is used; this is to enable its easy duplication and extension for future research.TeX output 2012.03.02:1241Adobe Acrobat 9.2 Paper Capture Plug-i

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

Quality of experience in affective pervasive environments

The confluence of miniaturised powerful devices, widespread communication networks and mass remote storage has caused a fundamental shift in the user interaction design paradigm. The distinction between system and user in pervasive environments is evolving into an increasingly integrated loop of interaction, raising a number of opportunities to provide enhanced and personalised experiences. We propose a platform, based on a smart architecture, to address the identified opportunities in pervasive computing. Smart systems aim at acting upon an environment for improving quality of experience: a subjective measure that has been defined as an emotional reaction to products or services. The inclusion of an emotional dimension allows us to measure individual user responses and deliver personalised services with the potential to influence experiences positively. The platform, Cloud2Bubble, leverages pervasive systems to aggregate user and environment data with the goal of addressing personal preferences and supra-functional requirements. This, combined with its societal implications, results in a set of design principles as a concrete fruition of design contractualism. In particular, this thesis describes: - a review of intelligent ubiquitous environments and relevant technologies, including a definition of user experience as a dynamic affective construct; - a specification of main components for personal data aggregation and service personalisation, without compromising privacy, security or usability; - the implementation of a software platform and a methodological procedure for its instantiation; - an evaluation of the developed platform and its benefits for urban mobility and public transport information systems; - a set of design principles for the design of ubiquitous systems, with an impact on individual experience and collective awareness. Cloud2Bubble contributes towards the development of affective intelligent ubiquitous systems with the potential to enhance user experience in pervasive environments. In addition, the platform aims at minimising the risk of user digital exposure while supporting collective action.Open Acces

Energy-Aware Streaming Multimedia Adaptation: An Educational Perspective

As mobile devices are getting more powerful and more affordable the use of online educational multimedia is also getting very prevalent. Limited battery power is nevertheless, a major restricting factor as streaming multimedia drains battery power quickly. Many battery efficient multimedia adaptation techniques have been proposed that achieve battery efficiency by lowering presentation quality of entire multimedia. Adaptation is usually done without considering any impact on the information contents of multimedia. In this paper, based on the results of an experimental study, we argue that without considering any negative impact on information contents of multimedia the adaptation may negatively impact the learning process. Some portions of the multimedia that require a higher visual quality for conveying learning information may lose their learning effectiveness in the adapted lowered quality. We report results of our experimental study that indicate that different parts of the same learning multimedia do not have same minimum acceptable quality. This strengthens the position that power-saving adaptation techniques for educational multimedia must be developed that lower the quality of multimedia based on the needs of its individual fragments for successfully conveying learning informatio

Demonstrating Immersive Media Delivery on 5G Broadcast and Multicast Testing Networks

This work presents eight demonstrators and one showcase developed within the 5G-Xcast project. They experimentally demonstrate and validate key technical enablers for the future of media delivery, associated with multicast and broadcast communication capabilities in 5th Generation (5G). In 5G-Xcast, three existing testbeds: IRT in Munich (Germany), 5GIC in Surrey (UK), and TUAS in Turku (Finland), have been developed into 5G broadcast and multicast testing networks, which enables us to demonstrate our vision of a converged 5G infrastructure with fixed and mobile accesses and terrestrial broadcast, delivering immersive audio-visual media content. Built upon the improved testing networks, the demonstrators and showcase developed in 5G-Xcast show the impact of the technology developed in the project. Our demonstrations predominantly cover use cases belonging to two verticals: Media & Entertainment and Public Warning, which are future 5G scenarios relevant to multicast and broadcast delivery. In this paper, we present the development of these demonstrators, the showcase, and the testbeds. We also provide key findings from the experiments and demonstrations, which not only validate the technical solutions developed in the project, but also illustrate the potential technical impact of these solutions for broadcasters, content providers, operators, and other industries interested in the future immersive media delivery.Comment: 16 pages, 22 figures, IEEE Trans. Broadcastin