A buffered-bandwidth approach for supporting real-time video streaming over cellular networks

In this paper, we study the admission and bandwidth allocation problems in real-time video streaming in a cellular network. Admission control in a cellular network is a complex issue due to the mobility of the clients, and the additional workload imposed by incoming clients could exceed the network capacity of a cell and seriously degrade the quality of services provided to the resident clients. To minimize the number of forced terminations of real-time video playback, we incorporate the notion of buffered bandwidth in the admission test for handoff client. Using this approach, we can balance the video workload among adjacent cells to minimize the impact of overloading as the result of handoff operations. We also examine techniques to maintain fairness in services especially under overload situations even though the requested videos from various types of clients could generate very different workload. Simulation experiments confirm the effectiveness of our approach compared to widely used schemes. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.