Design study for multimedia transport protocol in heterogeneous networks

Design of the multimedia transport protocol in heterogeneous wired-cum-wireless environment faces great challenges because of two contradictory objectives. On the one hand, the multimedia application requires smooth transfer rate, i.e., stability objective; on the other hand, vertical handoff in heterogeneous networks requires fast response at transfer rate, i.e., flexibility objective. To address this problem, this paper proposes to use passive bandwidth measurement at the receiver in the design of rate control algorithm for multimedia transport protocol. Moreover, a window based exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) filter with two weights is introduced to achieve stability and flexibility at the same time. Based on these considerations, a multimedia transport protocol (MMTP) is proposed. Its stability and flexibility as well as its fairness are verified by simulations.