Distributed rate allocation for video streaming over wireless networks with heterogeneous link speeds

Abstract

When multiple video streaming sessions are simultaneously transported over a shared wireless network, careful rate allocation is needed for efficient utilization of the network resources, while avoiding network congestion. The problem becomes more challenging when the network comprises links with heterogeneous transmission speeds, and when eachvideo stream has a different utility of its allocated rate. We propose a distributed scheme for congestion-distortion optimized rate allocation among multiple video streams sharing a network. Simulation results are presented for streaming multiple high-definition (HD) video sequences over both single-hop and multi-hop 802.11a networks with heterogeneous link speeds. In comparison with TCP-Friendly Rate Control (TFRC), the proposed cross-layer allocation scheme benefits from being both media-aware and network-aware, and achieves higher average video quality among all streams without incurring excessive network congestion.