Coordinating interstream rate control scheme using layered multicast

In multicast delivery in a network environment with various bandwidth limitations, it is effective to apply the layered multicast technique, which realizes delivery at a reception rate matched to each receiver, although the rate is set discretely. This paper assumes a multimedia session such as a multichannel broadcast or a video conference, composed of multiple streams. In such an application, it is desirable from the viewpoint of efficient use of bandwidth that not only should the streams be transmitted with stable quality, but that the rate should be assigned according to requests, such as attention to the speaker. However, it is difficult to achieve the above goal by directly applying the conventional layered multicast rate control technique, since each stream controls the rate independently. From such a viewpoint, this paper presents a session level mechanism covering multiple layered streams. A multiple streams controller (MSC) is introduced into each receiver, and each MSC autonomously controls the reception rate with interstream coordination in the session. The MSC monitors the reception state of the multiple streams simultaneously and estimates the bandwidth information on the bottleneck link and the set of transiting streams, based on the detected congestion data. Based on the estimation, the learning efficiency of the reception rate is improved and rate assignment control over the streams is applied. An evaluation is performed by computer simulation, and it is shown that the reception quality of the stream is improved by applying the proposed method, and that the reception rate can be coordinated among the streams. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 1, 88(8): 18–31, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecja.20142