TCP cooperation for multimedia over wireless networks

The usage of multimedia applications such as IP-TV and Video On Demand over wireless networks becomes more and more popular. In many cases the bandwidth of the wireless channel is the system bottleneck and thus it is important to increase the ability of wireless networks to provide a scalable service for multiple users simultaneously. The main idea proposed in this paper is based on a dynamic bandwidth allocation in the channel between the wireless gateway and the mobile clients. To achieve this, the gateway manipulates the different TCP flows, considering the conditions of all streams. Our extensive simulation study indicates that our algorithms significantly increase the probability that multiple multimedia streams will be delivered successfully in the presence of wireless network limitations such as low bandwidth and bounded wireless gateway buffer space. We show that by using our scheme, the probability for adequate service level is increased by 50% to 100% in various cases, when the multimedia servers are placed in symmetric and asymmetric distance over the Internet.