Network bandwidth sharing for transporting rate-adaptive packet video using feedback

This paper presents a framework for network bandwidth sharing to transport rate-adaptive packet video using feedback. We show how a weight-based bandwidth sharing policy can be used to allocate network bandwidth among competing video connections and design a feedback control algorithm using the available bit rate (ABR) flow control mechanism. A novel video source rate adaptation algorithm is introduced to decouple a video source's actual transmission rate from the rate used for the protocol convergence. We also demonstrate how an on-line minimum rate renegotiation and weight adjustment mechanisms can be employed to further enhance the flexibility of our feedback control protocol.