Improving content delivery efficiency through multi-layer mobile edge adaptation

Abstract

This paper presents a novel architecture for optimizing the HTTP-based multimedia delivery in multi-user mobile networks. This proposal combines the usual client-driven dynamic adaptation scheme DASH-3GPP with network-assisted adaptation capabilities, in order to maximize the overall Quality of Experience. The foundation of this combined adaptation scheme is based on two state of the art technologies. On one hand, adaptive HTTP streaming with multi-layer encoding allows efficient media delivery and improves the experienced media quality in highly dynamic channels. Additionally, it enables the possibility to implement network-level adaptations for better coping with multi-user scenarios. On the other hand, mobile edge computing facilitates the deployment of mobile services close to the user. This approach brings new possibilities in modern and future mobile networks, such as close to zero delays and awareness of the radio status. The proposal in this paper introduces a novel element, denoted as Mobile Edge-DASH Adaptation Function, which combines all these advantages to support efficient media delivery in mobile multi-user scenarios. Furthermore, we evaluate the performance enhancements of this content-and user contextaware scheme through simulations of a mobile multimedia scenario.Mobile multimedia traffic has been experiencing a dramatic increase in the last years, dominated by the explosion of media delivery through Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH). This approach, standardized by MPEG as ISO/IEC CD 23009-1 and adopted by 3GPP as 3GP-DASH, splits media contents in short media segments. These chunks can be made available at different quality versions, allowing users to switch between different quality representations from one interval to the following one. In this way, multimedia services are endowed with client-driven dynamic adaptation capabilities, which is a crucial feature for reacting to variable channel conditions. In AVC-based DASH (DASH-AVC), media content is split in K media segments (AVC k in Fig. 1a) available at N different representations (AVC n in Fig. 1a), corresponding to different quality levels. Each combination of media segment and quality representation is described as a unique HTTP object in a Media Presentation Description (MPD) file, and can be independently retrieved through HTTP GET requests. Therefore, at each time slot, the user device requests a unique video representation.SVC-based DASH (DASH-SVC) allows more flexible delivery schemes since different layers (base layer and enhancement layers) are split into different HTTP objects containing additive information. Each HTTP object in the MPD file represents a quality layer of a video segment. When client devices select the most suitable media representation (SVC 1 -SVC n objects in Fig. 1b) for a media segment (SVC k in Fig. 1b), the different layers are transmitted over the network as standalone HTTP transactions.Dynamic content delivery reacts to the specific network conditions based on either quick client-dri...

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