Dynamic traffic shaping technique for HTTP adaptive video streaming using software defined networks

In response to the rapid growth of mobile video traffic, major video providers such as YouTube and Netflix have recently adopted HTTP adaptive streaming protocol for video delivery. However, the possible degradation and instability in the perceived video quality are still the major issues with this protocol. Moreover, this protocol can cause unfairness among competing players in addition to bandwidth inefficiency. In fact, these issues are more common on mobile devices due to the instability nature of wireless links. In this paper, we present a dynamic SDN-based traffic shaping technique (DASH-SDN) that aims to address all the aforementioned issues. DASH-SDN is different from the existing shaping techniques in that it utilizes the long OFF periods of the most commercial adaptive video players to increase the throughputs for all traversing streams. Consequently, the video playback buffer can be proactively filled and the possible fluctuation in wireless link throughput can be effectively countered. Furthermore, DASH-SDN takes into consideration, in managing the bandwidth, the heterogeneity of the clients in terms of wireless channel qualities, round trip delays, and battery levels. Our initial results have shown great improvement in video QoE, bandwidth utilization, and power consumption.