MBTFRC: a TFRC enhancement for heterogeneous mobile networks

Design the multimedia stream transport protocol in heterogeneous mobile environments faces great challenges due to two objectives: smooth transfer rate, i.e., stability objective, and fast response to the changes of available bandwidth due to vertical handoff in heterogeneous networks, i.e., flexibility objective. TFRC is an equation-based congestion control scheme, which fits the stability objective well, but fails in the flexibility objective. This paper proposes to use passive bandwidth measurement at the receiver to improve the performance of TFRC. In addition, a window based EWMA filter with two weights is used to achieve stability and flexibility at the same time. Based on these considerations, a TFRC enhancement (MBTFRC) is presented. Its stability, flexibility and fairness are verified by simulations.