Network reputation-based stereoscopic 3D video delivery in heterogeneous networks

The recent advances in both wireless technologies and mobile devices, fuelled by increased user interest, have driven the latest development of mobile 3D video services. However, the limited wireless bandwidth is one of the critical challenges for mobile 3D video delivery, especially as the 3D content requires higher bandwidth than the conventional 2D video. This paper proposes a network reputation-based stereoscopic 3D video quality enhancement scheme in heterogeneous networks. A network reputation module is proposed to report the network quality based on quality of service-related parameters (i.e. throughput, signal strength, delay, and loss) and price aspects. The proposed solution selects the best candidate networks for the smartphone using the network reputation module. IETF Multipath TCP (MPTCP) protocol is used for delivering the 3D video content to the mobile devices due to the higher throughput provided. Different 3D video components (i.e. color stream and depth stream) are delivered via separate sub-MPTCP flows and synchronized at the receiver. Simulation results show important quality of service benefits when using the proposed solution in comparison with multipath TCP approaches: the average throughput was with 5.5% higher and the average delay was with 9.3% lower.