Rate adaptation for improved audio quality in wireless networks

As public and corporate interest in wireless solutions increases, the demand for consistent and acceptable quality of service for real-time, high-bandwidth data will also increase. Low bandwidths, high error rates, and transient traffic conditions are common in the wireless environment. These characteristics cause packet delay and loss, which negatively affect received quality. To improve the quality of audio transmission over wireless networks, we propose that audio applications adapt to current network conditions by reducing encoding rates to match available bandwidth. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a source initiated adaptive audio application.