QoE-Assured 4K HTTP Live Streaming via Transient Segment Holding at Mobile Edge
QoE-Assured 4K HTTP Live Streaming via Transient Segment Holding at Mobile Edge
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DOI：
10.1109/jsac.2018.2845000
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发表时间：
2018-06
影响因子：
16.4
通讯作者：
Chang Ge;Ning Wang;W. Chai;H. Hellwagner
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Chang Ge;Ning Wang;W. Chai;H. Hellwagner
近年来，基于HTTP的直播流已经变得越来越流行，并且越来越多的用户已经开始从他们的设备生成4K直播流（例如，移动的手机）通过Facebook或YouTube等社交媒体服务提供商。如果观众远离全球互联网上的直播流源，则TCP吞吐量由于慢启动和拥塞控制机制而变得基本上次优。当端到端内容递送路径涉及最后一英里处的无线电接入网络时，情况尤其如此。结果，由移动的接收器感知的数据速率可能不满足4K视频流的高要求，这导致体验质量（QoE）恶化。在本文中，我们提出了一个方案命名为基于边缘的临时持有的活段（ETHLE），它解决了上述问题，通过执行上下文感知的视频片段的临时持有在移动的边缘与虚拟化内容缓存能力。通过以上下文感知的方式在移动的边缘缓存中保持最小数量的直播视频片段，ETHLE方案能够通过消除缓冲并大幅减少初始启动延迟和直播流延迟来实现跨全球互联网的无缝4K直播流体验。它已经被部署为LTE-A网络中的虚拟网络功能，并且其性能已经使用分布在世界各地的真实的直播流源进行了评估。本文的意义在于，通过利用移动的边缘的虚拟化缓存资源，我们解决了传统的传输层瓶颈，并实现了具有高数据速率要求的、有QoE保证的全互联网直播流服务。
HTTP-based live streaming has become increasingly popular in recent years, and more users have started generating 4K live streams from their devices (e.g., mobile phones) through social-media service providers like Facebook or YouTube. If the audience is located far from a live stream source across the global Internet, TCP throughput becomes substantially suboptimal due to slow start and congestion control mechanisms. This is especially the case when the end-to-end content delivery path involves radio access network at the last mile. As a result, the data rate perceived by a mobile receiver may not meet the high requirement of 4K video streams, which causes deteriorated quality-of-experience (QoE). In this paper, we propose a scheme named edge-based transient holding of live segment (ETHLE), which addresses the abovementioned issue by performing context-aware transient holding of video segments at the mobile edge with virtualized content caching capability. Through holding the minimum number of live video segments at the mobile edge cache in a context-aware manner, the ETHLE scheme is able to achieve seamless 4K live streaming experiences across the global Internet by eliminating buffering and substantially reducing initial startup delay and live stream latency. It has been deployed as a virtual network function at an LTE-A network, and its performance has been evaluated using real live stream sources that are distributed around the world. The significance of this paper is that by leveraging virtualized caching resources at the mobile edge, we address the conventional transport-layer bottleneck and enable QoE-assured Internet-wide live streaming services with high data rate requirements.