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Optimal network selection in heterogeneous wireless multimedia networks

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Abstract

The complementary characteristics of different wireless networks make it attractive to integrate a wide range of radio access technologies. Most of previous work on integrating heterogeneous wireless networks concentrates on network layer quality of service (QoS), such as blocking probability and utilization, as design criteria. However, from a user’s point of view, application layer QoS, such as multimedia distortion, is an important issue. In this paper, we propose an optimal distributed network selection scheme in heterogeneous wireless networks considering multimedia application layer QoS. Specifically, we formulate the integrated network as a restless bandit system. With this stochastic optimization formulation, the optimal network selection policy is indexable, meaning that the network with the lowest index should be selected. The proposed scheme can be applicable to both tight coupling and loose coupling scenarios in the integration of heterogeneous wireless networks. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed scheme.

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Acknowledgment

We thank the reviewers for their detailed reviews and constructive comments, which have helped to improve the quality of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    F. Richard Yu

  2. Key Laboratory of Universal Wireless Communication, Ministry of Education, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Pengbo Si & Hong Ji

Authors
  1. Pengbo Si
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  2. Hong Ji
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  3. F. Richard Yu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pengbo Si.

Additional information

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation of China under Grant 60672124 and 60832009, the Hi-Tech Research and Development Program (National 863 Program) under Grant 2007AA01Z221, and the National Key Basic Research and Development Plan of China (973 Program) under Grant 2009CB320400.

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Si, P., Ji, H. & Yu, F.R. Optimal network selection in heterogeneous wireless multimedia networks. Wireless Netw 16, 1277–1288 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11276-009-0202-1

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