Clearmedia: A Proxy-Based Architecture for Streaming Media Services Over Wireless Networks

Current solutions for the delivery of streaming media over existing wireless networks typically rely on end-to-end feedback to help media servers adjust to changing channel conditions. In cases where there is significant variabililty in channel conditions experienced by a mobile terminal, the streaming client may not be able to effectively track changes and report them to the server. Furthermore, bandwidth constraints often limit the frequency of end-to-end feedback on the reverse link. Due to these factors, the media server may not be able to respond to rapid channel variations, which can result in unacceptable service quality for the end user. In this paper, we propose Clearmedia, a proxy-based architecture, to support high quality streaming media services over wireless networks. This architecture enables media servers to receive frequent and accurate feedback on prevailing network conditions, which leads to enhanced service quality. Our preliminary performance studies show that the proxy-based Clearmedia architecture achieves improvement in several key performance metrics that are representative of end-user perceived video quality.