Analysis of management policies for multicast transmission of scalable video content in next generation networks

Users of video multicast groups are highly heterogeneous in terms of individual channel conditions and requirements for video transmission. Their experienced quality may vary, making it a challenging task for the network to optimally configure the resource management. In this paper, we consider mathematical model to represent layered video content delivery in a multicast group. We compare various network policies to choose the optimum number of transmit opportunities and we investigate the role of feedback, which, if present, dynamically tunes the resource management. We analyze the actual perceived quality of the users as well as how their satisfaction levels vary in the multicast session. Simulation results show that the presence of feedback generally enhances the overall users quality; however, this improvement is heavily related to the resource allocation policy of the operator.