Design and experimental evaluation of network-assisted strategies for HTTP adaptive streaming

In this paper we investigate several network-assisted streaming approaches which rely on active cooperation between video streaming applications and the network. We build a Video Control Plane which enforces Video Quality Fairness among concurrent video flows generated by heterogeneous client devices. To the purpose, a max-min fairness optimization problem is solved at run-time. We compare two approaches to actuate the optimal solution in an SDN network: the first one allocating network bandwidth slices to video flows, the second one guiding video players in the video bitrate selection. Performance is assessed through several QoErelated metrics, such as Video Quality Fairness, video quality, and switching frequency. The impact of client-side adaptation algorithms is also investigated.