Modeling QoE for Buffered Video Streaming in Interference-Limited Cellular Networks

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Mobile networks have to cope with an ever increasing demand for video streaming, an application that imposes high quality requirements for user satisfaction. In this paper, we present an analytical model to calculate two important quality measures for streaming traffic, namely the video startup delay distribution and the buffer starvation probability. The queuing-theoretic model differs from related work by incorporating data flow dynamics of the considered cell, as well as the dynamics of fluctuating interference from neighboring cells, with the goal of accurately representing a multi-cellular environment. In this regard, we propose a finite-volume method to approximate the solution of the involved system of partial differential equations, where other approaches from comparable work were faced with numerical problems. We also evaluate two simplified versions of the model, where only the interference dynamics or all coupling terms are omitted, respectively. The model allows us to study the impact of different parameters on buffered video streaming performance. Additionally, we propose a user-centric metric to measure quality of experience (QoE). To the best of our knowledge, our approach is novel and has not been covered by comparable work. The presented results can help to design future cellular networks with enhanced video streaming experience.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number9076823
Pages (from-to)911-925
Number of pages15
JournalIEEE Transactions on Multimedia
Volume23
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2021
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85102072854
ORCID /0000-0002-0738-556X/work/197320468

Keywords

Keywords

  • Analytical models, Data models, Interference, Measurement, Quality of experience, Streaming media, Wireless communication, mobile communication, modeling, queuing analysis, multimedia communication