Streaming services in High Speed Downlink Packet Access

The evolution of the WCDMA air interface, namely High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) allows UMTS networks to improve network capacity and increase the theoretical data rates up to or above 10 Mbps. However, in HSDPA networks and the shared downlink radio channel used in HSDPA stills suffers from the insufficient data rates and are considered a challenging environment for delay and loss-sensitive application like video streaming services. The aim of this paper is to research streaming services in UMTS/HSDPA by means of simulation tools. A simulation model that helped to evaluate the video streaming services in UMTS/HSDPA networks has been developed. Several techniques in HSDPA for streaming services are reviewed to understand performance metrics for analysis, comparison and evaluation. This paper has focused mainly on RLC operation modes, multipath fading environments and packet scheduling on streaming services in HSDPA. The simulation results are presented and discussed briefly to conclude some important refinements in the existing models.