Mobile Multicast Research Articles

MI3M: A framework for media independent multicast mobility management

The evergrowing explosion in data generation and consumption is of paramount relevance for network operators. Operators strongly rely on techniques which enable efficient and scalable high-bandwidth data distribution, while coping with stricter user expectations in increasingly demanding scenarios, such as mobility in heterogeneous accesses. Primarily designed for efficient transport, IP multicast will be crucial for the successful deployment of video services such as Personal Broadcasting, but faces several technical limitations in such mobile scenarios.This work proposes a novel architecture enabling media-independent multicast mobility management of both multi-interface sources and receivers, while assuring efficient multicast data transport. The architecture provides localized mobility management through PMIPv6 protocol, and is supported by IEEE 802.21 for handover optimization. A full implementation was deployed in a physical testbed, enabling its evaluation in two main scenarios: receiver and source mobility. Its evaluation from the network and video consumer perspective shows that our scheme results in minimal handover impact in mobile multicast environments, for both consumers and producers.

An efficient mobility management scheme for convergence mobile media multicast services in NGN

This paper proposes mobility management architecture and scheme for network-based convergence mobile media multicast service, called Access Independent Mobile Service - with Mobile Multicast (AIMS-MM), which provides fast and seamless multicast service handover mechanism among heterogeneous wireless access networks with the minimum modifications on terminal devices. The proposed scheme applies a method to fast re-join the relevant multicast stream by enabling the AIMS-MM system to collect multicast group information through multicast group information handler located in the multicast router and providing related information to the router upon terminal handover. The advantage of the proposed method can provide an efficient seamless multicast service with fast connecting when they handover each other among heterogeneous wireless access networks with the proposed mobility management scheme. Also, the proposed scheme can provides the reliability and resource efficiency in the wireless area via exclusion of signaling in the wireless area. Through numerical analysis and the test-bed implementation, we have shown the superiority and practicality of the proposed scheme convergence mobile media multicast services in NGN. Experimental results show that the proposed method with AIMS-MM improve QoS with reducing delay time when comparing with MIP-BT-opt, HMIP-BT-opt, PMIP, etc., methods in terms of multicast service handover and etc.

A weight-aware channel assignment algorithm for mobile multicast in wireless mesh networks

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are one of key technologies for next generation wireless networks. In this paper, we propose a heuristic channel assignment algorithm with weight awareness to support mobile multicast in WMNs. To enhance network throughput, our algorithm is based on the path forwarding weight to perform channel assignment. In addition to non-overlapping channels, partially-overlapping channels are also used in channel assignment. To fully exploit all available channels in channel assignment, we devise a new channel selection metric to consider the channel separation and the distance between nodes. In mobile multicast, the multicast tree structure cannot be fixed due to receiver (multicast member) mobility. The change of the multicast tree structure will result in channel re-assignment. The proposed algorithm is based on a critical-event driven manner to reduce the times of channel re-assignment as much as possible. Finally, we perform simulation experiments to show the effectiveness of the proposed channel assignment algorithm.

Cost-Effective and Fast Handoff Scheme in Proxy Mobile IPv6 Networks with Multicasting Support

With recent advancements in wireless communication technologies, mobile multicasting is becoming important, in an effort to use network resources more efficiently. In the past, when various mobile IP-based multicast techniques were proposed, the focus was on the costs needed for network delivery to provide multicast services, as well as on minimizing the multicast handover delay. However, it is fundamentally difficult to resolve the problems of handover delay and tunnel convergence for techniques using MIPv6 (Mobile IPv6), a host-based mobility management protocol. To resolve these problems, the network-based mobility management protocol PMIPv6 (Proxy Mobile IPv6) was standardized. Although performance is improved in PMIPv6 over MIPv6, it still suffers from problems of handover delay and tunnel convergence. To overcome these limitations, a technique called LFH (Low-cost and Fast Handoff) is proposed in this paper, for fast and low-cost mobility management with multicasting support in PMIPv6 networks. To reduce the interactions between the complex multicast routing protocol and multicast messages, a simplified proxy method called MLD (Multicast Listener Discovery) is implemented and modified. Furthermore, a TCR (Tunnel Combination and Reconstruction) algorithm was used in the multicast handover procedure within the LMA (Local Mobility Anchor) domain, as well as in the multicast handover procedure between domains, in order to overcome the problem of tunnel convergence. It was found that, compared to other types of multicast techniques, LFH reduces multicast delay, and requires lower cost.

A handover algorithm in the converged networks of CMMB and TD-MBMS

With the development of information technology, the video services have become one of the most prevalent services in the era. Meanwhile, mobile TV technology has gradually become much more mature in China. In this paper, we first introduce the network architecture of time division-multimedia broadcast multicast service TD-MBMS and China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting CMMB. Then, we make a comparison of these two standards. As a solution, we propose architecture of converged networks based on these two standards and present a handover algorithm based on the converged network architecture proposed. At the end of this paper, we utilise OPNET for the simulation in order to illustrate the performance of the proposed handover algorithm.

Mobile Multicast in Hierarchical Proxy Mobile IPV6

Mobile Internet Protocol Version 6 (MIPv6) environments have been developing very rapidly. Many challenges arise with the fast progress of MIPv6 technologies and its environment. Therefore the importance of improving the existing architecture and operations increases. One of the many challenges which need to be addressed is the need for performance improvement to support mobile multicast. Numerous approaches have been proposed to improve mobile multicast performance. This includes Context Transfer Protocol (CXTP), Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6), Fast Mobile IPv6 (FMIPv6) and Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6). This document describes multicast context transfer in hierarchical proxy mobile IPv6 (H-PMIPv6) to provide better multicasting performance in PMIPv6 domain.

A Novel Prefix-Aggregation Based Distributed Management Scheme for PMIPv6

As a promising network-based mobility management protocol, Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) can provide the mobility support for the Mobile Node (MN) without any involvement of MN in mobility signaling. However, PMIPv6 supports the mobility management via centralized anchors, which leads to many obvious shortcomings, such as sub-optimal routing, scalability and single point of failure issue. Besides, it remains an open issue how to deal with the inter-domain handover for PMIPv6 while keeping optimal routing and low signaling costs as well as supporting multicast efficiently. In this paper, we propose a novel Prefix-Aggregation based Distributed Management Scheme for PMIPv6 (PA-DMSP), in which all the Local Mobility Anchors (LMAs) distributed in the extended home network are connected to each other via the global tunnel and announce their aggregated prefix to the Internet. By using the IP anycast routing, the signaling messages and data packets destined to any IP address that belongs to the aggregated prefix can be transmitted to the topologically closest LMA, which indicates that the optimized routing can always be achieved. Besides, the distributed LMA management scheme enables the inter-domain handover and eliminates the scalability and single point of failure issue. Moreover, PA-DMSP also proposes the multicast source mobility and receiver mobility support schemes. Our analysis verifies the better performance of PA-DMSP in terms of the signaling costs when compared with other baseline schemes. In addition, PA-DMSP can significantly improve the scalability in terms of reducing the number of LMA's routing entries.

Hierarchical agent-based secure and reliable multicast in wireless mesh networks

We propose and analyze a hierarchical agent-based secure and reliable multicast (HASRM) algorithm for efficiently supporting secure and reliable mobile multicast in wireless mesh networks, with design considerations given to minimize the overall network cost incurred by reliable multicast packet delivery, mobility management, security key management, and group membership maintenance. HASRM dynamically maintains a group of multicast agents running on mesh routers for integrated mobility and multicast service management and leverages a hierarchical multicast structure for secure and reliable multicast data delivery. The regional service size of each multicast agent is a key design parameter. We show via model-based performance analysis and simulation validation that there exists an optimal regional service size that minimizes the overall communication cost and the optimal regional service size can be dynamically determined. We demonstrate that HASRM under optimal settings significantly outperforms traditional algorithms based on shortest-path multicast trees extended with user mobility, security, and reliability support. We also show that a variant of HASRM is superior to a recently proposed multicast algorithm for secure group communication in wireless mesh networks.

Mobile multicast source support in PMIPv6 networks

With the widespread use of multimedia contents via mobile nodes (MNs), IP mobile multicast becomes more important for wireless, mobile, and ubiquitous multimedia applications. Until now, many research efforts have been made to provide IP multicast for the MNs. However, the existing mobile multicast schemes mostly focus on the mobility of receivers based on the host-based mobility solution that requires the MN to participate in the mobility management. Recent work has shown that service connectivity for mobile multicast sources is still a problem and attracts very little concern. With the development of the network-based mobility support protocol, mobile multicast source support schemes in Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) networks are needed urgently. In this paper, we propose a base solution (BS) and also a direct multicast routing scheme (DMRS) for mobile multicast source support in PMIPv6 networks. In the BS, the multicast listener discover (MLD) proxy function is adopted to transmit multicast data through the PMIPv6 tunnel. The DMRS can provide locally optimized traffic flows and avoid inefficient routing present in the BS. We evaluate and compare the performance of the proposed schemes with the Mobile IP bidirectional tunneling (MIP-BT) and Mobile IP remote subscription (MIP-RS) schemes by theoretical analysis and also implement the proposed schemes on the test-bed. The numerical results show that the BS and DMRS outperform the MIP-BT and MIP-RS in terms of signaling cost. Meanwhile, the experimental results verify the feasibility and validity of our proposed schemes. Furthermore, we study the optimal PMIPv6 domain size to reduce the total signaling cost for the proposed schemes.

CEMR: Congestion evasion Multicast Routing to Maximize Throughput for Mobile Ad hoc Networks

This paper is focused on a new solution for congestion evasion in ad hoc multicast routing that referred as Congestion Evasion Multicast Routing short CEMR. CEMR is aimed at Congestion Evasion in Multicast Mobile Ad hoc routing protocol. The current MAC level routing strategy is independent which can work with any multicast routing protocol irrespective of tree or mesh structure. During the study of CEMR performance, the CEMR tested along with On-Demand Multicast Routing Protocol where simulation results proved that CEMR raises the performance of ODMRP in order of magnitude.

Optimal Layered Video IPTV Multicast Streaming Over Mobile WiMAX Systems

A WiMAX radio resource allocation (WRA) problem is investigated in the context of IPTV broadcasting over mobile WiMAX multicast, broadcast services (MBS) channels. The goal is to maximize quality of services, in terms of number of subscribers served, number of IPTV channels carried, and perceived video qualities of individual viewers, subject to constraints on multicast channel capacities and space-time channel quality variations. We present an efficient heuristic algorithm based on the Pareto principle that achieves near-optimal results in polynomial time complexity. Extensive simulations are conducted to compare this new approach against state-of-the-art heuristic algorithms and consistent superior performance has been observed.

The Performance Analysis of the Multicast Extension Support for Proxy MIPv6

Mobile multicast is based on the traditional multicast protocols and the mobility support protocols to provide the multicast services for the mobile subscribers. Several mobile multicast methods were proposed in the past few years, but most of them are based on Mobile IPv6 and its variants which require the mobile node to support the mobility function. Recently, Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) was proposed to provide the mobility support for the mobile node with or without mobility function, and the previous studies have shown that PMIPv6 can improve the performance in term of the handover performance and protocol cost. However, PMIPv6 mainly concerns on the mobility support for unicast routing and little considers the multicast routing. In this paper, we propose two multicast methods called the MAG (Mobile Access Gateway)-based method and LMA (Local Mobility Anchor)-based method based on the different multicast delivery transmission path to extend PMIPv6, and analyze their performance under the different scenarios. The analytical results show that the LMA-based method is suitable for the higher speed, bigger domain size, and larger network topology scenarios, whereas the MAG-based method is suitable for the lower speed, smaller domain size and smaller network topology scenarios.

Speed Improves Delay-Capacity Trade-Off in MotionCast

In this paper, we study a unified mobility model for mobile multicast (MotionCast) with n nodes, and k destinations for each multicast session. This model considers nodes which can either serve in a local region or move around globally, with a restricted speed R. In other words, there are two particular forms: Local-based Speed-Restricted Model (LSRM) and Global-based Speed-Restricted Model (GSRM). We find that there is a special turning point when mobility speed varies from zero to the scale of network. For LSRM, as R increases, the delay-capacity trade-off ratio decreases iff R is greater than the turning point θ(√1/k); For GSRM, as R increases, the trade-off ratio decreases R R is smaller than the turning point, where the turning point is located at Θ(k√nn25) when k = o(n2/3), and at θ(k/n) when k = ω(n2/3). As k increases from 1 ton -1, the region that mobility can improve delay-capacity trade-off is enlarged. When R = θ(1), the optimal delay-capacity trade-off ratio is achieved. This paper presents a general approach to study the performance of wireless networks under more flexible mobility models.

Distributed dynamic mobile multicast

Traditional mobile multicast schemes have either high multicast tree reconfiguration cost or high packet delivery cost. The former affects service disruption time while the latter affects packet delivery delay. Although existing region-based mobile multicast schemes offer a trade-off between two costs to some extent, most of them do not determine the size of the service range, which is critical to network performance. In this paper, we propose a novel approach, called Distributed Dynamic Mobile Multicast ( D 2 M 2 ), to dynamically determine the optimal service range according to the mobility and service characteristics of a user. We derive an analytical model to formulate the costs of multicast tree reconfiguration and multicast packet delivery. The model is based on a Markov chain that analyzes a mobile node’s movement in a 2D mesh network. As the complexity of computing steady probability is high, we aggregate the Markov states by leveraging mobility symmetry. Simulation shows that the network performance is enhanced through D 2 M 2 .

Relay Ability Estimation and Topology Control Using Multidimensional Context Parameters for Mobile P2P Multicast

We focus on mobile P2P multicast, in which mobile end nodes not only act as receivers but also relay the received stream forward to others. In mobile P2P multicast, negative effects caused by the change of available bandwidth and the disconnection of mobile nodes are propagated to the downstream nodes. To solve this problem, we developed a novel node-allocation framework using the multidimensional context parameters of each mobile node, which include available bandwidth, disconnection rate, and the remaining battery capacity. Considering the significance of each parameter, our method integrates these parameters into a single parameter called relay ability. Taking the relay ability into account, each node is allocated to the multicast topology to minimize the negative effects mentioned above. To test our method, we applied our framework to conventional P2P multicast topology and show the results from comparative evaluations through computer simulation.

A study of forward error correction for mobile multicast

Abstract3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has standardized the use of forward error correction (FEC) for the provision of reliable data transmission in the mobile multicast framework. This error control method inevitably adds a constant overhead in the transmitted data. However, it is so simple as to meet a prime objective for mobile multicast services; that is scalability to applications with thousands of receivers. In this paper, we present a study on the impact of application layer FEC on mobile multicast transmissions. We examine whether it is beneficial or not, how the optimal code dimension varies based on network conditions, which parameters affect the optimal code selection, and how this can be done. Additionally, we focus on one of the most critical aspects in mobile multicast transmission, which is power control. The evaluation is performed with the aid of a novel scheme that incorporates the properties of an evolved mobile network, as they are specified by the 3GPP. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dynamic region‐based mobile multicast

AbstractTraditional mobile multicast schemes have higher multicast tree reconfiguration cost or multicast packet delivery cost. Two costs are very critical because the former affects the service disruption time during handoff while the latter affects the packet delivery delay. Although the range‐based mobile multicast (RBMoM) scheme and its similar schemes offer the trade‐off between two costs to some extent, most of them do not determine the size of service region, which is critical to the network performance. Hence, we propose a dynamic region‐based mobile multicast (DRBMoM) to dynamically determine the optimal service region for reducing the multicast tree reconfiguration and multicast packet delivery costs. DRBMoM provides two versions: (i) the per‐user version, named DRBMoM‐U, and (ii) the aggregate‐users version, named DRBMoM‐A. Two versions have different applicability, which are the complementary technologies for pursuing efficient mobile multicast. Though having different data information and operations, two versions have the same method for finding the optimal service region. To that aim, DRBMoM models the users' mobility with arbitrary movement directional probabilities in 2‐D mesh network using Markov Chain, and predicts the behaviors of foreign agents' (FAs') joining in a multicast group. DRBMoM derives a cost function to formulate the average multicast tree reconfiguration cost and the average multicast packet delivery cost, which is a function of service region. DRBMoM finds the optimal service region that can minimize the cost function. The simulation tests some key parameters of DRBMoM. In addition, the simulation and numerical analyses show the cost in DRBMoM is about 22∼50% of that in RBMoM. At last, the applicability and computational complexity of DRBMoM and its similar scheme are analyzed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Study on Schemes for Seamless Multicast Handover in the Proxy Mobile IPv6 Based on Wireless Networks

The research was carried on centered about the key technology in the Proxy Mobile Ipv6 networks. The frame based on multi-level domains multicast agent was proposed. And the multi-level domains multicast agent who can be collocated easily was also introduced. The different service area of multi-level domains multicast agent is overlapped which can avoid “single point of failure.” The router advertisements of Ipv6 discovered the dynamic change of availed multi-level domains multicast agent and network topology. An ASMM (Auto Study Mobile Multicast) program was proposed on the based frame of multi-level domains multicast agent. The way of sending multicast data in outer region can be chosen neatly taking advantage of the number of mobile host in outer region according to the network situation in this program instead of sending multicast data in only one mode which achieved seamless handover. In recent years, the rapid development of internet and mobile networks makes people demand the combination of internet and mobile networks more and more eagerly which can provide extensive business for mobile users. And multicast is a very promising technology in mobile network. It can enable a group of mobile users to receive the message from the same business source at the same time which improved network efficiency greatly [1]. The mobile multicast technology is facing many problems. Firstly, all multicast technology was designed for fixed host; the multicast tree established on these agreements can be changed easily. And it will cost much if it is changed; Secondly, The mobile multicast technology not only considers the dynamic change of every group members but also the location dynamic change of every group members [2, 3]. So, the mobile multicast technology is a research focus at present. IETF and many researchers proposed much mobile multicast agreement. But these agreements have different inadequateness.

Mobility of sources and listeners: real-time support of multicast services

In today's Internet there is an increasing demand for group-based multimedia sessions, such as video/audio conferencing, IPTV, push media. Moreover, there is an increasing trend for mobile communications, with large network dynamic events, which require fast resilience to keep, as much as possible, sessions alive over time. In this sense, the bandwidth-constrained data transport scheme of IP multicast allows traffic optimization throughout the network. However, current IP multicast support over mobile communications is not efficient, mainly due to the IP addressing scheme and mobility. If multicast sources mobility is taken into account, then the performance of IP multicast is significantly degraded, due to the requirement for constantly changing the overall multicast tree. In this paper we propose a new solution for agent-based multicast in both sources and listeners mobile environments, called MUlticast TEleport (MUTE). MUTE considers the existence of anchor points in the network that provide proxy features, assuming the view of multicast data source inside the network, and establishing independence between listeners and sources movements. Moreover, we propose MUTE extension to efficiently support time-sensitive sessions, which consists in integrating IEEE 802.21 and QoS-aware abstracted transport approach, to allow media independent transport with fast resilience support. The evaluation of MUTE was carried out in NS-2, and the results show that it is able to provide both multicast sources and listeners mobility with decreased disruption time and increased network performance in heterogeneous systems.

Design of the multicast service for mobile users in the 802.16 network environment

Middle-domain mobility management provides an efficient routing, low registration cost and handoff latency for layer 3 (IP layer) 802.16-based mobile network environment. In the middle-domain, the 802.16 base station (BS) acts as an agent or proxy to manage mobile networks to achieve this goal. The BS could only address external traffic but without internal case management. In order to complement this defect, an enhanced version for the middle-domain mobility management is designed in this paper. Moreover, we research and design the multicast extension for the middle-domain by applying the idea of the enhancement, which is called HMP (Hierarchical Multicast Protocol). Associated handoff scheme is also proposed in this paper. Since it is a complicated case for designing the multicast service in 802.16 network environment, we need a characteristic method to address this case. In order to fulfill this achievement of designing HMP scheme, we introduce a reduction process (RP) in this paper. By using the RP, a complicated 802.16-based network environment can be actually reduced to a simpler network environment. The mathematical analysis and simulation study are presented for performance evaluation. Simulation results have demonstrated that the enhanced middle-domain mobility management has the better network performance in terms of registration cost, handoff latency and routing cost in comparing with conventional mobility management schemes. Moreover, the proposed multicast extension for HMP scheme is simple and has scalability and network performance advantages over other approaches in mobile multicasting.