Optimal retransmission timeout selection for delay-constrained multimedia communications

The RTO (retransmission timeout) selection is a fundamental problem for any acknowledgment-based transmission. Conventional approaches simply choose RTO according to the estimated round-trip time and do not consider the delay constraint of multimedia applications and the packet loss rates provided by communication networks. In this research, we propose a novel algorithm of optimal RTO selection for delay-constrained multimedia communications based on a network model. By appropriately choosing the RTO, we are able to achieve the optimal tradeoff between the error probability and the rate cost. Experimental results demonstrate the improved performance.