A novel streaming method using QoS control function of LTE to prevent video freezing

Nowadays mobile video streaming services become very popular. However, due to the drastic bandwidth fluctuation in a mobile network, the quality of the mobile video streaming degrades significantly. Above all, mobile users are not happy when video image freezes for a few seconds/minutes. Most of current video streaming services are working as an OTT (over the top) service, which means a mobile network is regarded as a dumb pipe. Therefore it is very difficult to handle the fluctuation. We propose a novel video streaming method in which a QoS control function of a mobile network is utilized to prevent the video image from freezing. In the proposed method, an original video content is encoded into a sequence of video frames with multiple layers. There are two kinds of layers, a base layer and an enhancement layer. The base layer is small in size but includes all the necessary information to play the original content. The enhancement layer is large in size and provides better image resolution when decoded with a corresponding base layer. Then the base layer is prioritized by the QoS control function in the mobile network when it is delivered to a mobile terminal. On the other hand, the enhancement layer is delivered in a best effort manner. In this way, the mobile terminal can receive the base layer even when wireless signal is degraded and the video image dose not freeze at all. The proposed method is evaluated experimentally using a prototype system. The result of the evaluation shows that the proposed method works properly as we designed.