Low buffering and waiting-time video-on-demand broadcasting scheme for WiMAX systems

Abstract

Providing video-on-demand (VoD) services for mobile devices in next generation networks such as the worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) is an important trend. These multimedia services may require mobile devices keeping a large buffer size for video playing and let mobile devices spend a lot of time for waiting the start of the requested video. To improve this drawback, many mechanisms such as reverse fast broadcasting (RFB) scheme and division-base broadcasting (DBB) scheme are proposed to overcome problems of lowering the buffer size and shortening the waiting time for video playing. However, the required buffer size and waiting time are still not acceptable for wireless environment due to the limited buffer size and mobility consideration of the mobile devices. Thus we first propose a proactive scheme named remainder arrangement broadcasting (RAB) to lower the required buffer size. Then, to shorten the start time of video playing, we add the reactive method to RAB scheme named hybrid RAB (HRAB). Simulation results show that RAB will achieve a lower buffer size, which is under 10%, without requiring large bandwidth and HRAB will shorten the waiting time well.