DyMo: Dynamic Monitoring of Large-Scale LTE-Multicast Systems

LTE evolved Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (eMBMS) is an attractive solution for video delivery to very large groups in crowded venues. However, the deployment and management of eMBMS systems are challenging, due to the lack of real-time feedback from the user equipments (TIEs). Therefore, we present the Dynamic Monitoring (DyMo) system for low-overhead feedback collection. DyMo leverages eMBMS for broadcasting stochastic group instructions to all UEs. These instructions indicate the reporting rates as a function of the observed quality of service (QoS). This simple feedback mechanism collects very limited QoS reports from the TIEs. The reports are used for network optimization, thereby ensuring high QoS to the TIEs. We present the design aspects of DyMo and evaluate its performance analytically and via extensive simulations. Specifically, we show that DyMo infers the optimal eMBMS settings with extremely low overhead while meeting strict QoS requirements under different TIE mobility patterns and presence of network component failures. For instance, DyMo can detect the eMBMS signal-to-noise ratio experienced by the 0.1th percentile of the TIEs with a root mean square error of 0.05% with only 5 to 10 reports per second regardless of the number of TIEs.