Packet Loss in Real-Time Communications: Can ML Tame its Unpredictable Nature?

Due to the flourishing development of networks, and abetted by the Covid-19 pandemic, we have witnessed an exponential surge in the global proliferation of Real-Time Communications (RTC) applications in recent years. In light of this, the necessity for robust, scalable, and intelligent network infrastructures and technologies has become increasingly apparent. Among the principal challenges encountered in RTC lies the issue of packet loss. Indeed, the occurrence of losses leads to communication degradation and reallocation that adversely affect the Quality of Experience (QoE). In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of predicting packet loss phenomena through the utilization of machine learning techniques, solely based on statistics derived directly from packets. We provide different definitions of packet loss, subsequently focusing on the most critical scenario, which is defined as the first loss of a series. By delineating the concept of loss, we propose different problem formulations to determine whether there exists a mathematically advantageous scenario over others. To substantiate our analysis, we demonstrate that these phenomena can be correctly identified with a recall up to 66%, leveraging three ample datasets of RTC traffic, which were collected under distinct conditions at different times, further solidifying the validity of our findings.