Distributed Media-Aware Rate Allocation for Wireless Video Streaming

When multiple video streams share a wireless network, careful rate allocation is needed to prevent congestion, as well as to balance the video qualities among the competing streams. In this paper, we present a distributed media-aware rate allocation protocol, and evaluate its performance for streaming of high-definition video over 802.11-based wireless home networks. Our optimization framework accommodates heterogeneity in wireless link speeds and video rate-distortion characteristics, as well as traffic contention among neighboring links. The goal of the protocol is to minimize the total video distortion of all participating streams while limiting network utilization. It relies on cross-layer information exchange between video rate controllers at the end hosts and link state monitors at the relaying wireless nodes. Results from various network simulations confirm that the media-aware allocation outperforms transmission control protocol-friendly rate control in terms of average video quality and fairness among the streams.