Adaptive channel allocation for wireless multimedia services using a Semi-Markov Decision Process

This paper considers adaptive resource allocation for elastic wireless multimedia services in service-oriented networks. To capture the dynamics of user arrivals and departures, the resource allocation problem for wireless multimedia services is formulated as a Semi-Markov Decision Process (SMDP). An optimal decision is made to maximize the overall system reward and the Quality of Service (QoS) of elastic wireless multimedia services based on the available network resources considering the balance between network income and resource costs. Results are presented which demonstrate that the proposed adaptive channel allocation technique for multimedia services can achieve higher system rewards and lower service blocking probabilities compared to the commonly employed greedy resource allocation algorithm.