A methodology for assessing video transmission energy consumption and quality

Video traffic has been growing significantly and it is expected to be a large share of the future Internet traffic, within an increasingly mobile environment with scarce resources. In this context, new challenges arise, and energy-efficiency is becoming a key factor for the successful deployment of mobile networks. The development and validation of mechanisms for energy-efficient video transmission require the measurement of the energy consumption needed for video transmission, considering also the end-user Quality of Experience. This issue is of utmost importance, as users will tailor their application and network usage behaviors based on the perceived quality of the services and on the capabilities of their devices. In this work, an integrated empirical methodology to assess the video transmission energy consumption and quality is proposed. The developed methodology was validated on two distinct testbeds, one with IEEE 802.11 and the other with IEEE 802.16e. Results showed that the proposed methodology enables an accurate assessment of energy consumption with different technologies, while measuring the end-user Quality of Experience. Another contribution of the proposed methodology is the capability to gather data to support the creation and validation of realistic simulation models.