Double feedback streaming agent for real-time delivery of media over 3G wireless networks

A network agent located at the junction of wired and wireless networks can provide additional feedback information to streaming media servers to supplement feedbacks from clients. Specifically, it has been shown that feedbacks from the network agent have lower latency, and they can be used in conjunction with client feedbacks to effect proper congestion control. In this work, we propose the double-feedback streaming agent (DFSA) which further allows the detection of discrepancies in the transmission constraints of the wired and wireless networks. By working together with the streaming server and client, DFSA reduces overall packet losses by exploiting the excess capacity Of the path with more capacity. We show how DFSA can be used to support three modes of operation tailored for different delay requirements of streaming applications. Simulation results under high wireless latency show significant improvement of media quality using DFSA over non-agent-based and earlier agent-based streaming systems.