A quantitative framework for guaranteeing QoE of video delivery over wireless

In this paper, we study the problem of efficient video delivery over the cellular downlink. The key objective is to maximize the Quality of Experience (QoE) of the user, as measured by application level metrics such as the buffering ratio and low bit rate ratio. We present a two-tiered solution with a standard base-station scheduler that works on a per-packet basis and a Video Management System (VMS) that works at the granularity of thousands of video frames. The video management system uses knowledge of the video playout curves and future channel states to develop a scheduling policy that is feasibility optimal. The algorithms are simple and leverage recent results on real-time scheduling in wireless networks. We evaluate the performance of our algorithms using real video traces and a standard channel model. The VMS ensures that the per-user QoE guarantees are maintained, as compared with a standard PF scheduler that is oblivious to application level QoE requirements.