Equation-based Layered Video Multicast with Explicit Congestion Notification

We propose TCP-friendly layered multicast with explicit congestion notification (TFLME) protocol, designed for video streaming to multitude of heterogeneous receivers using IP multicast service. In the design of TFLME protocol, we introduce a congestion control strategy consisting of passive measurement of network congestion and non-integer exponential partition of video layers. The strategy is directly applicable to the layered video format in the standard track like MPEG4-FGS to achieve TCP-friendliness and fairness in presence of TCP-friendly competing traffic, while minimizing the ill effects of the coarse granularity of layer partition commonly found in the typical layered multicast. TFLME protocol utilizes explicit congestion notification (ECN) driven by random early detection (RED) algorithm, which provides advantage in achieving TCP-friendliness with less packet loss. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy and the performance of TFLME protocol are evaluated in the simulation with NS-2 simulator. © 2003 IEEE