Game-aware resource allocation in home gateways

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Online gaming, especially the new paradigm of Cloud Gaming, is not only advancing the state-of-the-art in interactive networked applications, but has already created significant business and markets. The revenue of gaming business reached US$83.6 billion in 2014, and is expected to rise to US$102.9 billion by 2017. However, Online gaming is fundamentally challenged by network latencies which impair the interactive experience of a game and negatively affect player's quality of experience (QoE). An interactive game is highly delay sensitive and must run live or near-live, especially in multiplayer mode. While much research has been performed on this topic for the past decade, the great majority have focused on reducing delay on the sever/cloud side or in the backbone infrastructure. There has been very little research done at the client side; i.e., the player's home network. To reduce delay and increase the player's QoE, a complete solution must comprise all segments, including the home network which is as important as the server. In this proposed project, we will work with Ubique Networks to develop a complete framework for optimizing the distribution of network resources across all applications that share the Internet access point at the player's home. Our goal is to maximize the Quality of Experience (QoE) of players without starving other applications on the same network. This is especially challenging for Cloud Gaming, due to the high video bandwidth required: for 720p video resolution at 50 fps (typical game quality), the former OnLive cloud gaming system (whose technology patents were recently bought by Sony) requires a network connection with at least 5 Mbps of bandwidth.