Large-scale experimental study of Internet performance using video traffic

In this paper, we analyze the results of a seven-month real-time streaming experiment, which was conducted between a number of unicast dialup clients, connecting to the Internet through access points in more than 600 major U.S. cities, and a backbone video server. During the experiment, the clients streamed low-bitrate MPEG-4 video sequences from the server over paths with more than 5,000 distinct Internet routers. We describe the methodology of the experiment, the architecture of our NACK-based streaming application, study end-to-end dynamics of 16 thousand ten-minute sessions (85 million packets), and analyze the behavior of the following network parameters: packet loss, round-trip delay, oneway delay jitter, packet reordering, and path asymmetry. We also study the impact of these parameters on the quality of real-time streaming.

[1]  Avideh Zakhor,et al.  Real-Time Internet Video Using Error Resilient Scalable Compression and TCP-Friendly Transport Protocol , 1999, IEEE Trans. Multim..

[2]  Hayder Radha,et al.  Scalable Internet video using MPEG-4 , 1999, Signal Process. Image Commun..

[3]  Hayder Radha,et al.  On retransmission schemes for real-time streaming in the Internet , 2001, Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM 2001. Conference on Computer Communications. Twentieth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Society (Cat. No.01CH37213).

[4]  Alfred C. Weaver,et al.  On Retransmission-Based Error Control for Continuous Media Traffic in Packet-Switching Networks , 1996, Comput. Networks ISDN Syst..

[5]  Thomas R. Gross,et al.  Bandwidth monitoring for network-aware applications , 2001, Proceedings 10th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing.

[6]  Van Jacobson,et al.  Congestion avoidance and control , 1988, SIGCOMM '88.

[7]  Peter B. Danzig,et al.  Characteristics of wide-area TCP/IP conversations , 1991, SIGCOMM '91.

[8]  Mark Handley,et al.  Equation-based congestion control for unicast applications , 2000, SIGCOMM 2000.

[9]  Amy R. Reibman,et al.  Constraints on variable bit-rate video for ATM networks , 1992, IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol..

[10]  David M. Fetterman,et al.  Videoconferencing over the Internet , 1997 .

[11]  Mark Handley,et al.  Equation-based congestion control for unicast applications , 2000, SIGCOMM.

[12]  Amarnath Mukherjee,et al.  On the Dynamics and Significance of Low Frequency Components of Internet Load , 1992 .

[13]  Jeffrey C. Mogul,et al.  Observing TCP dynamics in real networks , 1992, SIGCOMM '92.

[14]  A. Acharya,et al.  A Study of Internet Round-trip Delay , 1998 .

[15]  A. Mena,et al.  An empirical study of real audio traffic , 2000, Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM 2000. Conference on Computer Communications. Nineteenth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (Cat. No.00CH37064).

[16]  Thierry Turletti,et al.  Experience with control mechanisms for packet video in the internet , 1998, CCRV.

[17]  Srinivasan Seshan,et al.  TCP behavior of a busy Internet server: analysis and improvements , 1997, Proceedings. IEEE INFOCOM '98, the Conference on Computer Communications. Seventeenth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies. Gateway to the 21st Century (Cat. No.98.

[18]  Vern Paxson,et al.  Measurements and analysis of end-to-end Internet dynamics , 1997 .

[19]  Vern Paxson,et al.  On estimating end-to-end network path properties , 2001, SIGCOMM LA '01.

[20]  Michael S. Borella,et al.  Internet packet loss: measurement and implications for end-to-end QoS , 1998, Proceedings of the 1998 ICPP Workshop on Architectural and OS Support for Multimedia Applications Flexible Communication Systems. Wireless Networks and Mobile Computing (Cat. No.98EX206).

[21]  Jean-Chrysostome Bolot,et al.  End-to-end packet delay and loss behavior in the internet , 1993, SIGCOMM '93.

[22]  Klara Nahrstedt,et al.  Broadcast quality video over IP , 2001, IEEE Trans. Multim..

[23]  Hayder Radha,et al.  Increase-decrease congestion control for real-time streaming: scalability , 2002, Proceedings.Twenty-First Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies.

[24]  Christian Huitema,et al.  Videoconferencing on the Internet , 1996, TNET.

[25]  George C. Polyzos,et al.  Traffic characteristics of the T1 NSFNET backbone , 1993, IEEE INFOCOM '93 The Conference on Computer Communications, Proceedings.

[26]  Donald F. Towsley,et al.  Measurement and modelling of the temporal dependence in packet loss , 1999, IEEE INFOCOM '99. Conference on Computer Communications. Proceedings. Eighteenth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies. The Future is Now (Cat. No.99CH36320).

[27]  Injong Rhee,et al.  Error control techniques for interactive low-bit rate video transmission over the Internet , 1998, SIGCOMM '98.

[28]  Yin Zhang,et al.  On the constancy of internet path properties , 2001, IMW '01.

[29]  Thomas R. Gross,et al.  Bandwidth modelling for network-aware applications , 1999, IEEE INFOCOM '99. Conference on Computer Communications. Proceedings. Eighteenth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies. The Future is Now (Cat. No.99CH36320).