Enhancing mobile video streaming by lookahead rate allocation in wireless networks

Abstract

Developing novel video delivery mechanisms have become imperative to cope with the unprecedented growth in mobile video traffic. In this paper, we present video transmission schemes that improve the streaming experience by looking ahead at the future rates users are expected to face. Such an approach is useful for the delivery of stored videos that can be strategically buffered in advance at the users' devices. For instance, if it is known a user is entering a low coverage area, content can be prebuffered to support smooth streaming. Therefore, the Base Stations (BSs) can now plan long-term multi-user rate allocations based not only on current channel states, but also on future conditions. To provide a performance benchmark we first develop a lookahead multi-objective Linear Program (LP) that offers a trade-off between minimizing overall network video degradation, and providing fairness in individual user degradation. Then, to efficiently solve the problem, we present a polynomial-time algorithm that closely follows the pareto-optimal trade-off of the multi-objective LP. We provide an extensive performance analysis of the proposed methods by simulations, and numerical results demonstrate that significant improvements in video streaming are achievable by the lookahead rate allocation strategies.