QoE-driven network management for real-time over-the-top multimedia services

As current best-effort networks are becoming overwhelmed by new bandwidth- intensive services, such as IPTV and over-the-top multimedia, Internet service providers face new challenges in maintaining customer satisfaction. Unlike in the case of IPTV, wherein Internet service providers gain revenue to compensate for the increased traffic, support for over-the-top services needs a new kind of strategy if it is both to meet the expectations of customers and to increase the average revenue per user. In this work, a quality-of-experience-driven network access point architecture is proposed that would take both user perceptions and economic perspectives into account for over-the-top multimedia services. This goal is reached through identification of the various traffic types traversing the access point and application of network traffic control strategies in line with the client subscription type and perceived quality. This approach allows the prioritisation of inelastic traffic over classical Internet traffic, which is more tolerant to variations in network conditions. Client subscriptions, premium and normal, allow, at the same time, differentiation of the same traffic types. Another key concept is improvement of the quality of over-the-top services for premium users without one critically sacrificing the experience of normal users, who mostly rely on traditional 'best-effort' service quality. The results of this study bring better understanding of technological needs and possibilities in the realm of over-the-top multimedia but also of how traffic can be managed through application of quality of experience as a performance indicator.