QoS Multicast Protocol for Live Streaming

Yuthapong SOMCHIT
Aki KOBAYASHI
Katsunori YAMAOKA
Yoshinori SAKAI

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications   Vol.E88-B    No.3    pp.1128-1138
Publication Date: 2005/03/01
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 10.1093/ietcom/e88-b.3.1128
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: PAPER
Category: Network
Keyword: 
multicast,  live streaming,  loss,  QoS,  allowable delay,  retransmission,  

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Summary: 
Live streaming media are delay sensitive and have limited allowable delays. Current conventional multicast protocols do not have a loss retransmission mechanism. Even though several reliable multicast protocols with retransmission mechanisms have been proposed, the long delay and high packet loss rate make them inefficient for live streaming. This paper proposes a multicast protocol focusing on the allowable delay called the QoS Multicast for Live Streaming (QMLS) protocol. QMLS routers are placed along the multicast tree to detect and retransmit lost packets. We propose a method that enables data recovery to be done immediately after lost packets are detected by the QMLS router and a method that reduces the unnecessary packets sent to end receivers. This paper discusses the mathematical analysis of the proposed protocol and compares it with other multicast protocols. The results reveal that our protocol is more effective in live streaming. Finally, we do a simulation to evaluate its performance and study the effect of consecutive losses. The simulation reveals that consecutive losses can slightly increase losses with our protocol.