Dynamic and context-aware streaming adaptation to smooth quality degradation due to IEEE 802.11 performance anomaly

Abstract

The need for application-level context visibility to properly perform streaming service management in wired-wireless integrated networks is widely recognized. In particular, the paper claims the need for full application-level awareness of context data about the IEEE 802.11 performance anomaly, i.e., when even a single node located at the borders of the coverage area of a Wi-Fi access point produces a relevant degradation in the connectivity quality of all other nodes in the area. We propose a middleware that on the one hand portably predicts and detects anomaly situations via decentralized and lightweight client-side mechanisms and, on the other hand, exploits anomaly awareness to promptly react with application-level management operations (streaming quality downscaling and traffic shaping). In particular, the paper focuses on how our middleware performs anomaly-driven quality downscaling both to preserve the goodput at nodes in well-covered areas and to minimize quality degradations at the clients generating the anomaly. The reported experimental results point out how anomaly prediction/detection can relevantly improve the effectiveness of streaming downscaling, thus allowing to maintain acceptable service quality notwithstanding Wi-Fi anomaly occurrences.

An Adaptive Medium Access Parameter Prediction Scheme for IEEE 802.11 Real-Time Applications

“…Other approaches focus on ensuring an optimum level of QoS by carrying out any kind of optimization over other network layers. In [13] a middleware at the application level to improve the multimedia traffic performance is introduced. In particular, the main goal of this scheme is to maximize the provisioning quality to wireless clients in case of anomaly conditions in the network.…”

A Prioritized Adaptive Scheme for Multimedia Services over IEEE 802.11 WLANs

“…Earlier solutions focused on queue scheduling modifications including [25], [26], [27], [28]. Recently, many research works improve the Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols [29], [30], [31], [32]. The principal idea of these schemes is to relate differentiated services with dynamic MAC parameters such as Contention Window (CW), Inter Frame Space (IFS), etc.…”