A machine learning-based framework for preventing video freezes in HTTP adaptive streaming

HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) represents the dominant technology to deliver videos over the Internet, due to its ability to adapt the video quality to the available bandwidth. Despite that, HAS clients can still suffer from freezes in the video playout, the main factor influencing users' Quality of Experience (QoE). To reduce video freezes, we propose a network-based framework, where a network controller prioritizes the delivery of particular video segments to prevent freezes at the clients. This framework is based on OpenFlow, a widely adopted protocol to implement the software-defined networking principle. The main element of the controller is a Machine Learning (ML) engine based on the random undersampling boosting algorithm and fuzzy logic, which can detect when a client is close to a freeze and drive the network prioritization to avoid it. This decision is based on measurements collected from the network nodes only, without any knowledge on the streamed videos or on the clients' characteristics. In this paper, we detail the design of the proposed ML-based framework and compare its performance with other benchmarking HAS solutions, under various video streaming scenarios. Particularly, we show through extensive experimentation that the proposed approach can reduce video freezes and freeze time with about 65% and 45% respectively, when compared to benchmarking algorithms. These results represent a major improvement for the QoE of the users watching multimedia content online

Improved Linear Crosstalk Precompensation for DSL

Crosstalk is the major source of performance degradation in next generation DSL systems such as VDSL. In downstream communications transmitting modems are co- located at the central office. This allows crosstalk precompensation to be employed. In crosstalk precompensation the transmitted signal is pre-distorted such that the pre-distortion destructively interferes with the crosstalk introduced by the channel. Existing crosstalk precompensation techniques either give poor performance or require modification of customer premises equipment (CPE). This is impractical since there are millions of legacy CPE modems already in use. We present a novel crosstalk precompensation technique based on a diagonalization of the crosstalk channel matrix. This technique does not require modification of CPE. Furthermore, certain properties of the DSL channel ensure that this diagonalizing precompensator achieves near-optimal performance

Optimal Multi-user Spectrum Management for Digital Subscriber Lines

Crosstalk is a major issue in modern DSL systems such as ADSL and VDSL. Static spectrum management, the traditional way of ensuring spectral compatibility, employs spectral masks which can be overly conservative and lead to poor performance. In this paper we present a centralized algorithm for optimal spectrum management (OSM) in DSL. The algorithm uses a dual decomposition to solve the spectrum management problem in an efficient and computationally tractable way. The algorithm shows significant performance gains over existing DSM techniques, e.g. in an upstream VDSL scenario the centralized OSM algorithm can outperform a distributed DSM algorithm such as iterative waterfilling by up to 380%

Optimal multi-user spectrum balancing for digital subscriber lines

Crosstalk is a major issue in modern digital subscriber line (DSL) systems such as ADSL and VDSL. Static spectrum management, which is the traditional way of ensuring spectral compatibility, employs spectral masks that can be overly conservative and lead to poor performance. This paper presents a centralized algorithm for optimal spectrum balancing in DSL. The algorithm uses the dual decomposition method to optimize spectra in an efficient and computationally tractable way. The algorithm shows significant performance gains over existing dynamic spectrum management (DSM) techniques, e.g., in one of the cases studied, the proposed centralized algorithm leads to a factor-of-four increase in data rate over the distributed DSM algorithm iterative waterfilling

Protecting The Robustness Of ADSL And VDSL DMT Modems When Applying DSM

When transmitting data over an ADSL or VDSL link, performance is very important. In order to improve the bit rate that can be achieved over the copper link, a lot of techniques like power backoff (PBO) and dynamic spectrum management (DSM) focus on the crosstalk and try to operate with lower noise margin. Today's ADSL and VDSL modems are very robust. Both in ADSL and VDSL there exist reconfiguration protocols that take care of changing noise environments. The intent of the paper is to know what the impact is of DSM on the robustness of these systems. If the noise increases, the modem may lose showtime, unless the modem can adapt its PSD to compensate for the increase of noise. In this paper, we investigate for DSM the speed and robustness of various online reconfiguration protocols that exist today. We will consider a worst case noise : a noise that also impacts the communication channel that is needed to reconfigure the modem. Since reconfiguration is essential to recover from a degraded environment, the speed and the robustness of this reconfiguration protocol is very important

Partial Crosstalk Precompensation in Downstream VDSL

Very high bit-rate digital subscriber line (VDSL) is the latest generation in the ongoing evolution of DSL standards. VDSL aims at bringing truly broadband access, greater than 52 Mbps in the downstream, to the mass consumer market. This is achieved by transmitting in frequencies up to 12 MHz. Operating at such high frequencies gives rise to crosstalk between the DSL systems in a binder, limiting achievable data-rates. Crosstalk is typically 10-15 dB larger than other noise sources and is the primary limitation on performance in VDSL. In downstream transmission several crosstalk precompensation schemes have been proposed to address this issue. Whilst these schemes lead to large performance gains, they also have extremely high complexities, beyond the scope of current implementation. In this paper we develop the concept of partial crosstalk precompensation. The majority of the crosstalk experienced in a DSL system comes from only a few other lines within the binder. Furthermore its effects are limited to a small subset of tones. Partial precompensation exploits this by limiting precompensation to the tones and lines where it gives maximum benefit. As a result, these schemes achieve the majority of the gains of full crosstalk precompensation at a fraction of the run-time complexity. In this paper we develop several partial precompensation schemes. We show that with only 20% of the run-time complexity of full precompensation it is possible to achieve 80% of the performance gains

DSM in Practice: Iterative Waterfilling Implemented on ADSL Modems

New techniques emerge in the DSL world to increase the bit rate and deployment range of particular services. These techniques are better known as Dynamic Spectrum Management (DSM) applied at different levels. The increasing DSM levels can be seen as an evolution towards increasing coordination between multiple DSL lines: from level 1 and 2 (multi-user power allocation resulting in crosstalk avoidance) to level 3 (multi-user detection resulting in crosstalk mitigation). In this paper we focus on DSM at level 1 and in particular on a specific algorithm called iterative water-filling which has been implemented on ADSL modems. Measured performance results are given showing a big performance increase

Spectrally Compatible Iterative Water Filling

Until now static spectrum management has ensured that DSL lines in the same cable are spectrally compatible under worst-case crosstalk conditions. Recently dynamic spectrum management (DSM) has been proposed aiming at an increased capacity utilization by adaptation of the transmit spectra of DSL lines to the actual crosstalk interference. In this paper, a new DSM method for downstream ADSL is derived from the well-known iterative water-filling (IWF) algorithm. The amount of boosting of this new DSM method is limited, such that it is spectrally compatible with ADSL. Hence it is referred to as spectrally compatible iterative water filling (SC-IWF). This paper focuses on the performance gains of SC-IWF. This method is an autonomous DSM method (DSM level 1) and it will be investigated together with two other DSM level-1 algorithms, under various noise conditions, namely, iterative water-filling algorithm, and flat power back-off (flat PBO)