Low-variance TCP-friendly throughput estimation for congestion control of layered video multicast

A low-variance TCP-friendly throughput estimation scheme for robust congestion control of layered video transmission is presented in this work. We propose the inclusion of min-max averaging operation in the basic average loss interval (ALI) algorithm. The proposed operation helps reduce the variance of the ALI estimation by suppressing the correlation of neighboring loss intervals arising from the TCP additive-increase-multiplicative-decrease (AIMD) behavior. The resulting low-variance TCP throughput estimation scheme is applied to layered video multicast congestion control, and its performance is evaluated via computer simulation.