Information-driven resource negotiation strategies for multimedia applications

We propose decentralized solutions for resource negotiation, where multiple autonomous users self-organize into a coalition which shares the same network resources and negotiate the division of these resources by exchanging information about their requirements. We discuss various network resource sharing strategies that the users can deploy based on their exchanged information. Several of these strategies are designed to explicitly consider the utility (i.e., video quality) impact of multimedia applications. To quantify the utility benefit derived by exchanging different information, we define a new metric referred to as the value of information. Simulation results show the improvements that can be achieved when various information is exchanged between users, and discuss the required complexity involved in implementing the various resource negotiation strategies.