Video Quality in 5G Networks: Context-Aware QoE Management in the SDN Control Plane

Future Fifth-Generation (5G) networks are expected to be underpinned by Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and to predominantly carry multimedia traffic. Ambitious 5G Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) call for reliable, low-latency and high-density networks capable of supporting Ultra High-Definition (UHD) video. Video streaming and multimedia traffic engineering over SDN networks is an important emerging research area where innovative solutions will be required to meet the challenging 5G KPIs. This paper proposes a holistic SDN control plane approach to multimedia transmission engineering problem in which we employ state-of-the-art scalable video encoding based on the latest H.265 video standard, combined with a contextually aware SDN controller. The controller has knowledge of both the network and the scalable characteristics of multimedia streams and makes decisions aimed at meeting 5G KPIs by reducing latency, maintaining reliability and integrity of the network whilst meeting users' Quality of Experience (QoE) expectations.