Adaptive channel control scheme to reduce channel zapping time of mobile IPTV service

Due to the limited bandwidth of the mobile network, mobile IPTV does not broadcast the content of all channels to its users. Channel zapping time, which is inevitable time until the user watches the selected channel when the streaming data of selected channel is not available at the mobile device, significantly affects the QoS (Quality of Service) of mobile IPTV services. This paper presents a simple but effective channel control scheme that reduces channel zapping time and improves user perceived QoS in mobile networks. The proposed scheme uses the user channel switching behavior-based prebuffering channel control scheme and network-aware rate control scheme. The experimental result shows that the proposed scheme can significantly reduce channel zapping time of mobile IPTV service.