Converged video delivery over heterogeneous networks

Abstract

Mobile traffic has grown substantially over the last few years; a trend which is expected to continue. The chief reasons behind this phenomenon are the availability of better handsets, faster cellular networks and the variety of content available on the internet suitable for consumption on mobile devices. The nature of the traffic is also changing from pure web browsing with latency-tolerant traffic to video, which is becoming the major class of content consumed on mobile devices. This trend, combined with the trend of decreasing prices per GB of data, which constrains the amount of money an operator can spend upgrading its network and they see increasing value in alternative solutions to address this data deluge while managing costs and maintaining customer service. A variety of solutions have been tried by operators based on enhanced charging, traffic engineering and backhaul infrastructure upgrades. Wi-Fi offload is one such promising solution as it addresses the congestion problem where it is most severe because of data consumption by users using streaming video. Cellular spectrum is a scarce and expensive resource for operators, and by allowing them to offload traffic to Wi-Fi networks in unlicensed spectrum they can free cellular spectrum for more valuable applications. Wi-Fi offload has, however, suffered from the incapability to manage seamless handovers and the required interaction of the user to select a Wi-Fi network. This made the process of attaching to a Wi-Fi network very complicated. These limitations have been addressed in recent standards and make the case for Wi-Fi offload more viable and attractive than earlier. At the same time new video optimization techniques such as H.264/SVC which allow the use of multiple streams and channel will allow content providers or distributors to use multiple networks and to scale video seamlessly according to handset capabilities and network conditions. The thesis proposes a solution, based on a set of new Wi-Fi standards and the new H.264/AVC codecs, which leverages a combination of low cost Wi-Fi and high reliability cellular networks to reduce the cost of video transmission while maintaining a comparable QOE for nomadic users. The thesis also enumerates some of the basic procedures that can be supported using the proposed architecture. This new architecture opens new opportunities for existing players in the mobile content ecosystem and adds new players to the ecosystem. The thesis identifies the needs and opportunities for each of the new player and also develops a cost model for streaming video using this solution.