Lexicographically fair bandwidth allocation in multi-session layered media multicast using network coding

Layering techniques effectively cope with network heterogeneity encountered in media distribution. Recent work on network coding shows that the multicast throughput can be greatly improved by allowing coding operation at the intermediate nodes in the network. In this paper, we study the problem of lexicographically fair bandwidth allocation to make the receivers of different sessions share network bandwidth fairly in multi-session layered media multicast using network coding and formulate it into an integer linear programming (ILP). Because the ILP is not time efficient when the network is large, a LP-based polynomial time algorithm ApprOpt is proposed to approximate the optimal solution of the ILP. Numerical results show that the throughput of all media multicast sessions is significantly improved by network coding, and that algorithm ApprOpt allocates network bandwidth very close to the optimal solution of the ILP and utilizes network bandwidth efficiently.