An adaptive control scheme for multimedia flows over wireless networks

Supporting multimedia communication over wireless networks is a critical issue, especially in the context of the new wireless network generation due to the nature of multimedia flows and the characteristics of wireless links such as high bit error rates, etc. Without a suitable control the multimedia flows may cause network congestion, starvation of other traffic and waste of resources. This paper introduces a new adaptive control scheme based on the concept of link bandwidth estimation and TCP-friendly congestion control for multimedia flows. With the bandwidth estimation, not only the link state is predicted but also the link available bandwidth can be estimated, thus the wireless link can be efficiently exploited. In case of link error, the transmission is suspended in order to reduce the loss rate and the power use of wireless terminals. For congestion, the control scheme behaves in a TCP-friendly fashion thus a fairness of different flows can be gained without starvation of other flows.