IP Packet charging for multimedia services

II.7 MULTIMEDIA APPLICATIONS

In networking, there are many applications used wired media that are following:

> Streaming video > Streaming audio > Collaboration

> One-way and interactive multimedia messaging

> Gaming, including interactive peer-to-peer (p2p) gaming

> Digital money transactions

> MP3¹⁹ music download

> Video- and audio-supported shopping

> Long-distance learning, education

> Video and audio conferencing

> File sharing and transfer (pictures, video clips, and text)

> Feeding of real-time news and information about the weather, financial markets, sports and so on

> Geographic location services

> Safety services > Gambling

> Entertainment

But in this project, the focused application is video streaming.

Let define HiperLAN, which is HiperLAN is a set of wireless local area network (WLAN) communication standards primarily used in European countries. There are two specifications: HiperLAN/1 and HiperLAN/2. Both have been adopted by the ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute).

19 MP3 is the Compression scheme used to transfer audio files via the Internet

II.7.1 VIDEO AND AUDIO STREAMING

Video and audio streaming provides the means of delivering news, entertainment, remote education, documentary, corporate speeches, fashion shows, and many more types of communication. Television may be the most well-known form of streaming video. It already feeds wireless multimedia streams into millions of dishes and antennas, connected to TVs and other devices. DirecTV and Dish Networks are two major providers of streaming video in the United State.

Streaming technologies are important, since most users do not have access to enough connection capacity to download large multimedia files quickly. Using streaming technologies, consumers can start listening to the audio stream or view the video stream before the entire file has been received.

To allow efficient streaming, the provider needs to send the data as a steady stream and the receiver needs to be able to cache excess data in a temporary buffer until used. If the data do not arrive fast enough, users will experience interruptions. There are several competing streaming technologies, such as RealAudio player, RealVideo player, Microsoft Media Player, PacketVideo player, and QuickTime player.

To reduce the amount of information transmitted, streaming video and audio data are compressed by means of technologies such as MPEG. The streaming video quality depends on the capacity of the transmission channel and its ability to support a steady stream the better the channel quality (i.e., higher and steady data rate), the better the quality ofthe audio and video output.²⁰

20 Aura Ganz, Zvi Ganz, Kitti Wongthavarawat, Multimedia Wireless Networks: Technologies, Standards, and QoS, Prentice Hall, page 12,13

II.7.2 PACKETS SCHEDULING

The packet scheduling algorithm

1) Allocates bandwidth for connections in terms ofthe number ofpackets and

2) Determines when a connection is allowed to transmit. The packet scheduling algorithm uses the RR and RG. The standard does not define the packet scheduling algorithm. Itjust defines the signaling mechanism such as RR and RG.²¹

Figure 16 summarizes the HiperLAN/2 QoS architecture which provides the necessary mechanisms to deliver per-flow quantitative QoS services.

Figure 16: HiperLAN/2 QoS Architecture

Source: Aura Ganz, Zvi Ganz, Kitti Wongthavarawat, Multimedia Wireless Networks: Technologies, Standards, and QoS, Prentice Hall

21 Aura Ganz, Zvi Ganz, Kitti Wongthavarawat, Multimedia Wireless Networks: Technologies, Standards, and QoS, Prentice Hall, page 110