Link Estimation and Rate Control for Optimized Video Streaming on Overlay Networks

A set of applications such as IP-TV, Internet video broadcasting, corporate telecast or E-learning require simultaneous transmission of video streaming over the Internet. However, conventional solutions for Internet streaming services have exhibited several disadvantages such as server overload and congestion in the immediate network nodes, especially in case of large number of clients. These solutions are also failed to provide QoS-guarantees for streaming services across a heterogeneous Internet. In this article, we propose a novel overlay architecture that is designed for multimedia streaming transmission on the Internet. Basic facility for overlay multicast has been introduced, which can relay a single content to multiple users with consideration of bandwidth available on the overlay links. Also, we deploy a link estimation algorithm to analyze the overlay link condition, which is exposed to congestion and interference. Based on the link estimation algorithm, we developed a rate adaptation algorithm to adapt the transmission rate to the downstream available bandwidth. Our real implementation shows that the new proposed algorithms greatly improve the perceived quality of service at the client, while better utilize network resources.