Quality of Service in Heterogeneous Networks: Current Status, Examples, and Open Issues

QUALITY OF SERVICE IN HETEROGENEOUS NETWORKS:
CURRENT STATUS, EXAMPLES, AND OPEN ISSUES
Kostas Pentikousis and Milla Immonen

VTT TECHNICAL RESEARCH CENTRE OF FINLAND
QOS DEFINED: RESEARCH
•QoS is a mature, well-researched topic

•Packet Classification
•Shaping and Policing
•Buffer acceptance and queue management
•Scheduling algorithms
•However, QoS seems to fade as a research topic
•The research community is more interested in
• Network measurements and analysis
• TCP and TCP-friendly protocol performance
over multi-gigabit pipes, multi-hop wireless
• P2P, Routing, Overlays
• Security, Gaming
7.7.2006 2
QOS DEFINED: DEPLOYMENT
•Several deployment attempts did not succeed in

making QoS ubiquitous
•Integrated Services (early 90s)
•Differentiated Services (mid 90s), QBone
•ATM, MPLS, wireless ATM vs. IEEE 802.11, …
•In addition, overprovisioning seems to be more wide-
spread, more attractive than deploying QoS
•Is that a bad thing?
•Is overprovisioning the solution?
•Is it enough? Why not?
7.7.2006 3
QOS ACCORDING TO NETWORK OPERATORS
•The ability of the network to deliver traffic within a

certain range of values of
•Throughput (b/s)
•Delay (s) and Jitter (s)
•Packet Loss (%) due to congestion and
corruption
•Out-of-order delivery
•Typically, network operators agree to meet such
predetermined ranges X% of the time
•5 "9s" = 99.999% = fail to meet QoS 5 min/year
•3 "9s" = 99.9% = ~9 hours/year
•2 "9s" = 99% = ~3.65 days/year
7.7.2006 4
REASONS TO DEPLOY QOS
• Huston (2000) notes three main reasons for

introducing QoS in the Internet architecture
1. High-quality support for IP voice and video
2. Service response management
3. A differentiated Internet access service,
providing a network client with a range of
service-quality levels at a range of prices
• All three seem to be centered around network
operator interests
7.7.2006 5
QOS: CAVEATS
•QoS does not create any (new) capacity, but

•is the means to deal with lack of resources
• if capacity is scarce, resource sharing
requires frugality
• "proper" resource allocation
•QoS introduces a certain degree of complexity in the
network
•Ordinary end users expect something else than "9s"
• Ulseth (2004) A network QoS class definition is not
sufficient for the user
• Networks not belonging to the operator domain
such as WLAN are not included,
• Media processing (voice coding) and other
terminal related characteristics are not included
7.7.2006 6
OVERPROVISIONING: IT AIN'T BAD
Overprovisioning is not a new idea
Factor of safety (a.k.a. factor of ignorance)

Eighteenth century iron bridges had a factor of safety
of 3-7x the calculated load
The Harilaos Trikoupis bridge connecting Rio-Antirio in SW Greece
7.7.2006 7
OVERPROVISIONING (2)
Redundancy
RAID: increase fault tolerance/reliability and/or
performance
Availability
A. S. Tanenbaum asks: when was the last time you
picked up the phone and got a busy tone?
7.7.2006 8
OVERPROVISIONING (3)
Ease of use
Memory garbage collection
Peak performance
Do you really need a dual core 64-bit CPU at 3 GHz?
Infinitesimal extra cost

Ride the Ethernet upgrade wave: 10 102 103 Mb/s
Deploy 802.11a/b/g although either of the 3 would be

more than enough
7.7.2006 9
OVERPROVISIONING vs. QoS
Overprovisioning
•"throwing money at a problem"
•"inefficient"
•"ineffective"
•"wasteful"
•it simply sounds wrong
7.7.2006 10
OVERPROVISIONING vs. QoS (2)
•But, then, which of the two figures below do you

consider more efficient, effective, or wasteful?
7.7.2006 11
•Do you consider this overprovisioned?
Interstate 105/Interstate 110 Interchange, Los Angeles, California,USA

Source: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/eihd/i105i110.htm
7.7.2006 12
•Well, the I-105/I-110 interchange (completed in 1993)

received an Award of Merit in 1996 by the US DOT -
Federal Highway Administration, for Excellence in
Highway Design
•This is an intermodal interchange: "It has three levels

of transfer facilities, including direct HOV connectors
between the two freeways"
•HOV? That's a form of QoS, isn't it?
7.7.2006 13
•So, perhaps, excess capacity may not be a "bad

thing" and can coincide with QoS
•More seriously, considering total cost of ownership
(TCO), can it be that overprovisioning alone is the
right thing and no QoS is needed?
•Networkers need to determine whether QoS is
•deployable?
•reliable?
•cost-effective?
•the only viable solution?
7.7.2006 14
QoS vs. CHARGING
•QoS has been typically associated with tiered, e.g.

bronze, silver, gold and platinum services, and
policing/charging schemes
•Charging, the argument goes, is an effective means

for enforcing QoS
•Flat pricing: all packets are marked as platinum
7.7.2006 15
QoS vs. CHARGING (2)
•QoS is by no means identical to tiered charging; it

does not have to be amalgamated with tiered billing,
and may have nothing to do with charging per packet
•Instead, QoS can provide the framework to deliver a

service in the first place
•Case in point? Maxinetti, a triple play service (IPTV +
VoIP + Broadband Internet access) offered in the
metropolitan Helsinki area in Finland
7.7.2006 16
QoS AS A BUSINESS ENABLER: maxinetti
•End users pay X euros for a given IPTV channel

package, Y euros for VoIP, Z euros for Internet
access, or buy the bundle at a discount
•The operator, Maxisat, must differentiate flows from

different services
7.7.2006 17
PRAGMATIC QoS
•Differentiating between classes of traffic is easier,

more scalable
•More like traffic prioritization
•Given 8 Mb/s of downlink capacity, must provide
•sufficient & sustained bandwidth (IPTV: 3-5 Mb/s)
•low end-to-end delay for VoIP
•low jitter for VoIP and IPTV
•operational reliability and low packet loss rate
•Maxisat could have employed DiffServ, IntServ, or
any other more elegant or sophisticated QoS scheme.
They didn't.
7.7.2006 18
"QoS THAT WORKS"
Cope with standard

Gigabit Song ring & equipment (keep
residential cabling costs low, increase
infrastructure reliability)
Use IEEE 802.1P CoS

and IP TOS fields to
deliver bundled digital
IPTV, VoIP and DSLAM handles
broadband Internet downstream classification
access
7.7.2006 19
Maxinetti
•It works :) and shows that CoS may be enough and it

should be the first step to a tier-service system.
•Maxisat opted for rudimentary downlink flow
classification using CoS at Layer 2 and ToS at Layer
3 to provide end-to-end QoS
•Why? Reliability and cost effectiveness
•Yet this is a closed, homogeneous network

infrastructure, under single administrative control
•What about end-to-end cross AD QoS? First, let's see
what kinds of QoS frameworks exist
7.7.2006 20
ATM
• ATM allows point to point and point to multipoint virtual circuit to be

requested with pre-specified QOS.
• Rich set of QoS mechanisms with a wide variety of service categories
or QoS descriptors.
• Class A (AAL1) - Constant Bit Rate (CBR) service
• bit rate is constant
• Class B (AAL2) - Variable Bit Rate (VBR) servicet
• the bit rate is variable but requires a bounded delay for
delivery.
• Class C (AAL3/4 or AAL5) - Connection-oriented data service
• connection is set up before data is transferred,
• variable bit rate
• does not require bounded delay for delivery
• Class D (AAL3/4 or AAL5) - Connectionless data service
• datagram traffic and in general
• data network applications where no connection is set up
before data is transferred
AAL= ATM Adaptation Layer
7.7.2006 21
QoS IN CELLULAR NETWORKS
G Frequency Technology Data rate (kb/s) QoS

(MHz)
1 450/900 Analogue voice 1.2 kbits/s NO
2 900/1800/1900 CDMA & TDMA 9.6 kbits/s NO
voice
2.5 same GPRS, EDGE, and Up to 76 kbits/s Available
HSCSD (in addition (not used)
to digital voice)
3 2000 WCDMA Up to 384 kbits/s Available
3.5 same HSDPA (extension Theoretically up to Available

to WCDMA) 10,8 Mbits/s
Current situation 1
Mbits/s
7.7.2006 22
QoS MECHANISMS IN UMTS
• Versatile needs of applications lead to traffic

prioritising
• Traffic can be divided into 4 QoS classes
1. Conversational class
2. Streaming class
3. Interactive class
4. Background class
• Biggest difference between these classes is the
delay sensitivity
7.7.2006 23
UMTS QoS CLASSES
Telephony
VoIP speech
Conversational
Video telephony
E-mail Real-time
Podcasts video
Background Streaming
Messaging
File downloads Radio
Web browsing
Interactive IM
Games
DB & server
access
7.7.2006 24
3G - Universal Mobile Telecommunications

Service (UMTS) Architecture
UTRAN = UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network

Internet /
Node B = Base station Intranet /ISP
Applications Content
RNC = Radio Network Controller Wap WWW, Application

Gateway E-mail servers
GGSN= Gateway GPRS Node
SGSN= Serving GPRS Support Node
Ethernet
IP
Iub RNS Firewall
NODE B Iu
RNC
GGSN
NODE B
Iub Core
Iur SGSN
Network
Iub
NODE B
RNC
NODE B Iu
Iub
RNS
UTRAN
7.7.2006 25
3G TEST PLATFORM
• Provides access for real

WCDMA terminals to
Core network and
Internet
• Enables easily the end-
to-end service testing in
3G environment
• Makes optimisation and
enhancements of QoS-
mechanism in UTRAN
and Core network
possible without intruding
upon public network
Iub = UMTS interface between radio network controller and base station
Gi = Interface between gateway GPRS support node and external network
7.7.2006 26
3G AND BEYOND TEST NETWORK
Sensor WLAN
network
•Session mobility
•Terminal mobility
3G
Internet
7.7.2006 27
WiMAX Enhancements for VTT's Laboratory Network
Testbed environment
•Open development and testing
environment
•Connectet to VTT laboratory network and
to Internet through FUNET and GEANT
Research and implementation work
•Video and Voice over IP services
•Fast rate control supporting cross-layer information
•Mobility and multi-access enhancements
•VHOs between different access networks
•Subscriber station (SS) and base station (BS) side
solutions to gather and process channel and
VHO = vertical handover network state information
MIP = mobile IP
HIP = host identity protocol
7.7.2006 28
DiffServ = differentiated services
IEEE 802.11 WLAN: FAMILY OF STANDARDS
•IEEE Subgroups has standardised

•physical layer of OSI
• 802.11b: 11 Mbits/s in 2.4 GHz band
• 802.11a: 54 Mbits/s in 5 GHz band
• 802.11g: 54 Mbits/s in 2.4 GHz band
•MAC sub layer
•Provide transparent interface for the higher layer
users
•existing network protocols run over IEEE 802.11
WLAN
WLAN can be thought as a wireless version of the

Ethernet, which provides best-effort service
7.7.2006 29
WLAN 802.11 NEW STANDARDS
•IEEE 802.11e, 802.11f and 802.11i under

standardisation process
•IEEE 802.11e will provide enhanced QoS
mechanisms
•IEEE 802.11f Inter-Access Point Protocol (IAPP)
•IEEE 802.11i will provide security mechanisms
7.7.2006 30
IEEE 802.11 MAC SUBLAYER
•Distributed coordination function SEND AFTER

DIFS SECONDS
(DCF)
• ”listen before talk”
FREE
• works based on a Carrier Sense SENSE THE BUSY
Multiple Access (CSMA) CHANNEL
FREE BUSY
• DIFS = DCF Interframe Space SENSE THE
CHANNEL FOR BACKOFF
ADDITIONAL
RANDOM TIME BUSY
SENSE THE
FREE CHANNEL
7.7.2006 31
WLAN IEEE 802.11e
•QoS Standard
•Work is Final
•Goal:
•enhance the access mechanisms of IEEE802.11
•provide service differentiation
•Enhanced DCF (EDCF)

•extension of DCF
•allows traffic to be classified into 8 different traffic
classes, by modifying the backoff times
7.7.2006 32
MONITORING QoS
•Close to network traffic measurements

•Main difference: result analysis
•in QoS analysis network traffic is used as a tool to
reveal the performance characteristics
•delay
•maximum throughput
•jitter, etc.
•passive measurement methods
•monitoring existing traffic
•active methods
•traffic is generated for the measurements
7.7.2006 33
Mobility Management Mechanisms

• During the last years Mobile IP (MIP) has
become "de facto" mobility management protocol
for Internet
• Although MIP is workable, it has several defects
• handovers may not be fast and smooth
• message overhead can be significat if
Home Agent is distant
• QoS implementations are problematic due
to tunneling
• It does not support micromobility
• rely on IP addresses hard to identify host
which are beyond NATs etc.
• Several new protocols and enhancements have
been proposed
• Hierarchial MIPv6, Cellular IP, HAWAII for
micromobility
• Host identity protocol (HIP) for security,
multihoming, end-host mobility
7.7.2006 34
SUBJECTIVE QoS vs. OBJECTIVE QoS
• User experience is the one that counts!

• Subjective QoS is the service quality from the user
perspective
• measuring subjective QoS is done by user tests
• only reliable way
• Mean Opinion Score (MOS) tests are often used
expensive and time consuming
7.7.2006 35

perspective
7.7.2006 36

perspective
• Mean Opinion Score (MOS) tests are often used
expensive and time consuming
• Objective QoS
• can be measured directly
• can be used to estimate subjective QoS
7.7.2006 37
MONITORING TOOLS
•Available to all
•Off-the-shelf network analyzers (Ethereal,
Tcpdump, WinDump, … )
•Custom software based on standard packet
capture libraries (libpcap, WinPcap)
•Operator and enterprise level monitoring tools
•OSS
•RTCP, RMON2, RTFM, …
•MRTG
•Typically measure round trip, not end-to-end one-way
parameters
•Network asymmetries dictate a closer look at one-way
end-to-end measurements
7.7.2006 38
QoSMET –End-to-end QoS Monitoring Tool
capture
Packet
capture
Packet
7.7.2006 39
VERIFYING QoSMeT
•VoIP call between the laptops

•Network emulator for adjusting packet loss value
•Measurements with QoSMeT
•packet loss
•offered load and
•throughput
7.7.2006 40
VERIFYING QoSMeT EXAMPLE –packet loss
Emulated packet loss Measured avg. Ploss +

Time (s)
(PlossE) 95 % CI
[0, 30) 0.00 0.000
[30, 90) 0.10 0.100 ± 0.010
[90, 120) 0.00 0.000
[120, 180) 0.20 0.201 ± 0.021
[180, 210) 0.00 0.000
[210, 270) 0.05 0.050 ± 0.008
[270, 300) 0.00 0.000
[300, 360) 0.15 0.152 ± 0.013
[360, 390) 0.00 0.000
[390, 450] 0.03 0.033 ± 0.007
7.7.2006 41
VERTICAL HANDOVER PERFORMANCE –

measurement scenario
7.7.2006 42

measurement scenario
• Mobile IP in use
PUBLIC 3G
NETWORK
WLAN WLAN
LAN LAN
50s 50s 50s 50s 50s
7.7.2006 43
VERTICAL HANDOVER PERFORMANCE - delay
0.2
Delay
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.12
Delay [s]
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0.0 50.0 100.0 150.0 200.0 250.0
Time [s]
7.7.2006 44

duration of connection loss
10.000
Loss length
Connection loss length [s]
1.000
0.0 50.0 100.0 150.0 200.0 250.0
0.100
0.010
Time [s]
7.7.2006 45
TIME FOR QoS THROUGHOUT THE STACK
•Intra- and, to some extent, inter-system handovers

based on link layer metrics are commonplace in
wireless networks
•We need to go further: session continuity
•VTT demonstrated session continuity for
streaming media between different devices (PC
and IPAQ running Linux)
AMBIENT NETWORKS DEMO
7.7.2006 46
QoS THROUGHOUT THE STACK (2)
•Applications will need to incorporate some form of

adaptation too (related work: MAGELLAN, PHOENIX)
•Example: QoS-Aware Gaming-on-Demand e
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7.7.2006 47
•Real-time video coding adaptation method for game

service
•Network monitoring tool
•Real-time video encoding parameter optimization
7.7.2006 48
•Moore's Law is favorable to more efficient, but

computationally expensive codecs
•Pattern of development cycles efficiency gains
Source: European Broadcasting Union
•at least two cycles to come after MPEG-4 Part 10

D. Wood, EBU
7.7.2006 49
•Conjecture: QoS in heterogeneous environments

cannot be delivered with network-based QoS alone
•We can provide a certain level of QoS or adaptation at
the two ends of the protocol stack
•What about the rest of the stack?

•Underlying mechanisms need further study
•Transport protocols, such as TCP, might need
some new options. Example: TCP User Timeout
Option (draft-ietf-tcpm-tcp-uto-02, October 2005)
•Handovers cannot be solely based on link layer
metrics (e.g. SNR). Why?
7.7.2006 50
3G/UMTS DYNAMIC CAPACITY ALLOCATION
7.7.2006 51
3G/UMTS: FIRST CONNECTION GOODPUT
350
300
250
X
Goodput (kb/s)
200
150
X
100
X
50
X X
X
0
4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024
MOSET Payload (KB)

7.7.2006 52
LAN: FIRST CONNECTION GOODPUT
10000
8000
X
Goodput (kb/s)
6000
X
X
4000
2000
X X
X X
0
4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024
MOSET Payload (KB)

7.7.2006 53
THE "PROPER" IP QoS
•When unconditioned TCP-like traffic (i.e., traffic that

slows down in the face of congestion) is mixed in with
real time traffic (that keeps going despite congestion),
both sides lose
— Carpenter & Nichols (2002)
•Need a QoS framework matching IP principles:

•Network services (QoS) should not be designed
for, or tied to any particular application
•IP designers did not attempt to predict what
applications will be using the network
— neither should QoS designers
•Provide the means to differentiate traffic and
allow for network engineering
7.7.2006 54
DIFFERENTIATED SERVICES ARCHITECTURE
•Scalable:
•classification & conditioning only at boundaries
•small set of forwarding behaviors
•apply per-hop behaviors to aggregates of traffic
•Incrementally deployable
•Differentiation is asymmetric, decoupled from apps
•A refinement of the original Precedence model
7.7.2006 55
IPv4 CLASS-BASED DIFFERENTION
•RFC 791 (1981) and RFC 1812 (1995)
Precedence Type of Service
•RFC 2474 (1998) and RFC 3260 (2002)
Differentiated Services Field
•RFC 3168 (2001)
Differentiated Services Field ECN
7.7.2006 56
SERVICE SPECIFICATION & PHBs
•Service level specification (SLS): set of parameters

and their values which together define the service
offered to a traffic stream by a DS domain
•Traffic conditioning specification (TCS): set of
parameters and their values which together specify a
set of classifier rules and a traffic profile
•TCS: integral element of an SLS
•Per-hop Behaviors (PHB):
•Default; best effort
•Class selector
•Expedited forwarding (EF); "virtual leased line"
•Assured forwarding (AF)
7.7.2006 57
CLASSIFICATION
•Bonaventure defines a flow as a sequence of packets

with one common "characteristic", which can be
based on any field of the packets
•Flows can be defined at different layers providing finer
granularity and control at the cost of more
state/lookups
•Classify once at edge, mark and then use markings
•Static vs. Dynamic Classification
7.7.2006 58
STATIC CLASSIFICATION
•Layer 2: ATM and Frame Relay circuits, switched e2e

circuits (GbE, soon XGbE and beyond); L2 VPNs
•Layer 3: IP host-to-host, but also all IP traffic with the
same next BGP hop; L3 VPNs
•Layer 4: All TCP traffic from host-to-host is treated
differently from all UDP traffic for the same pair.
•Layer 7: HTTP vs. VOIP vs. FTP vs. SMTP
7.7.2006 59
TRAFFIC CLASSIFICATION & CONDITIONING
Measure the temporal properties

of the packet stream
Meter
Packets Classifier Marker Shaper/Dropper
Multi-field Set DSCP

classification
Delay/discard some or all of the
Differentiated Services Field ECN packets in a traffic stream in order
to bring the stream into
compliance with a traffic profile
7.7.2006 60
DiffServ ARCHITECTURE
•Minimalist — sophisticated simplicity

•Separation of control and forwarding (like in IP)
•Supported by all major vendors in mid- and high-end
routers
•Inter-domain, bilateral agreements
•For inter-AD traffic, perhaps the only pragmatic,
standardized framework in actual deployment
•Nevertheless, deployment is not widespread
•Non-technical obstacles
7.7.2006 61
DiffServ: STILL RELEVANT?
•By the time RFCs 2474 & 2475 were released in

December 1998
•Asia: the financial crisis was in full swing
•USA: the major issue was the Monica Lewinsky
scandal
•Europe: the euro did not exist
•Wall Street: irrational exuberance ruled
•In mid-June, crude oil set a 12-year low: it

averaged $10.11 per barrel— half of the official
OPEC target of $21
•1998 birthdays:
Windows 98, iMac, Celeron, and Google
7.7.2006 62
SLOW DEPLOYMENT
•The Maxinetti case shows that class-based

differentiation is deployable, allows for new services,
and can be profitable
•That is exactly what DiffServ was all about
•So why is public deployment of DiffServ soooo slow?
•Need inter-provider agreements (cf. VPN)
•Need to demonstrate the benefits(?) of QoS
•Need to enforce consistent policies
•Overprovisioned backbones
•QoS is costly and can lead to operational
overhead for providers
•No common, well-understood service definitions
•Your reason here :)
7.7.2006 63
OPEN ISSUE: WHO NEEDS QoS?
•L3 virtual private networks (VPN)?

•Most of the DiffServ deployments
•Network games? Henderson & Bhatti (2003):
•Many and successful net games… using best
effort only
•Throughput not an issue, delay is
•Reported delays deter users from joining a server
•Delay increases while playing do not force users
to leave in droves despite the noticeable
degradation in their gaming performance
•Would gamers pay for QoS?
•Yes, if included in the price of the game
•No, if it was offered as a "premium" service
7.7.2006 64
OPEN ISSUE: WHO NEEDS QoS? (2)
•VoIP
•Skype is already making VoIP reality without any
QoS and you only need a dialup connection
•Why would a user pay more for her VoIP
packets? She wouldn't. But she would go for a
Maxinetti kind of service which is cheap and hip :)
•And that is our view: QoS frameworks should be
seen as enablers, not as cash cows
•IPTV
•Video gaming servers
7.7.2006 65
MULTIMEDIA APPLICATIONS AND QOS
•Application QoS metrics (Bhargava, 2002)

•Timeliness (meet play-out deadlines)
•Accuracy (play the right data)
•Precision (receive what was sent)
•For instance, in a multimedia presentation
•play all frames in order, without delays and
discards
•on time and in sync with the rest of the content
• do so at the bit rate of the encoded stream,
without any discounts on quality.
•The network can provide guaranties in drop rate, but
an SVC receiver may discard half the received frames
•Can meet throughput requirements (averaged over a
certain period) but break timeliness for real-time video
7.7.2006 66
MULTIMEDIA ADAPTATION LAYER:

MOTIVATION
•FP6 IST PHOENIX (2004-2006)

•Tag line: jointly optimizing multimedia
transmissions in IP-based wireless networks
•develops solutions that exploit available
bandwidth on wireless links efficiently
• source coding
• MAC, channel coding
•targets multimedia transmission over wireless IP
networks
7.7.2006 67

MOTIVATION (2)
•Layered video has a hierarchical structure:

•not a "flat" byte stream
•neither a series of independent datagrams
•but a stratified, interdependent "set of streams"
associated with a different end-user "value" and
play out deadlines
•Are typical transports and rudimentary traffic
treatment sufficient?
•Need
•a solution for different access networks
•to evaluate the real benefits from H.264/SVC
while it's being standardized
7.7.2006 68
A SCALABLE EXTENSION TO H.264/AVC
•SVC is a scalable extension to H.264/AVC

•jointly developed by MPEG (ISO) and VCEG
(ITU) expert groups
•aims at offering scalability with comparable
coding efficiency versus current state-of-the-art
non-scalable coding schemes (H.264)
•standardization process is still ongoing
•scalability is three-dimensional
• Temporal (frames/s)
• Spatial (image resolution)
• SNR (signal-to-noise ratio)
7.7.2006 69
H.264/SVC MAIN GOAL
•Video is encoded only once

•The encoded version can be scaled easily to several
user equipment (from HDTV to mobile phone)
7.7.2006 70
H.264/SVC CODING EFFICIENCY
7.7.2006 71
RELATED WORK
•Lots of work on MPEG-4 FGS (with and without cross-

layer optimizations)
•FGS coding efficiency is not so good
•Lots of work on MAC-based (802.11e, for example)
cross-layer design and optimizations
•we are interested in a solution that can work
based on established standards, independent of
MAC if possible
•No prior network simulation studies with SVC
7.7.2006 72

ARCHITECTURE
•Source rate
adaptation
•Traffic differentiation
•Packet prioritization
•Rate adaptation
7.7.2006 73

ARCHITECTURE (2)
7.7.2006 74
SIMULATION METHODOLOGY
1. Virtual video streams
H.264/SVC
Encoder/
Video Packetizer
<Interpacket time (ms), Packet size (bytes), Layer ID (0, 1, 2)>

<100, 1500, 0>
<139, 1500, 1>
<600, 1500, 2>
<60, 300, 2>
D1 Trace
Network
Video receiver
Video Server
Direction of video packet stream
2. ns-2 simulation
ns-2
trace
Packet arrival
time, size, layer,
…
? Video quality
metrics
3. Trace post-processing
7.7.2006 75
RESULTS (1/3): THROUGPUT

600000
500000
400000
Throughput (bytes/s)
300000
200000
100000
0
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Time (s)
TCP H.264/SVC SVC/PriQ SVC/MAL
7.7.2006 76
RESULTS (2/3): PACKET ARRIVALS

4/5
Packets Received:
5.3 3 H.264/SVC/MAL
2
1
0
0
4.8 1
2
Packets Dropped
3
4/5
4/5
4.33
2
H.264/SVC/PriQ
1
0
0
1
SVC Layer
3.8
2
3
4/5
4/5
3.3 3
2 H.264/SVC
1
0
0
2.8 1
2
3
4/5
2.3
Video-on-demand over TCP New Reno (no layers, no priorities)
1.8
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Packet Arrival Time (s)
7.7.2006 77
RESULTS (3/3) : PACKET ARRIVALS

4/5
Packets Received:
5.3 3 H.264/SVC/MAL
2
1
0
0
4.8 1
2
Packets Dropped
3
4/5
4/5
4.33
2
H.264/SVC/PriQ
1
0
0
SVC Layer
3.8 1
2
3
4/5
4/5
3.3 3
2 H.264/SVC
1
0
0
2.8 1
2
3
4/5
2.3
1.8
16 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 16.5 16.6 16.7 16.8 16.9 17
Packet Arrival Time (s)
7.7.2006 78
MAL: SUMMARY
•The Multimedia Adaptation Layer (MAL)

•builds on recent advances in scalable, layered
video standards
•employs standards-based network and MAC-
layer traffic prioritization mechanisms
•is necessary for scalable video over wireless
networks
•Our evaluation methodology
•capitalizes on
• cutting-edge, prototypical H.264/SVC video
encoding software
• the most widely-used network simulator
•provides important insights for future
development
7.7.2006 79
VOIP WITHOUT QOS: SKYPE
•Skype bundles
•VoIP (the first p2p-based client)
• Free PC-PC, with the best quality compared
to Yahoo!, AIM, Google Talk
• Very cheap (0.02 EUR/min) to/from most of
the world supporting both PC-PSTN
(SkypeOut) and PSTN-PC (SkypeIn)
• Teleconferencing (up to 5 people)
• Recently, video calling too
•Instant messaging (IM)
•File transfer (p2p-based, of course)
7.7.2006 80
WHY SKYPE THRIVES
•Skype works
•Seamlessly behind NATs and firewalls
• Implements TURN and STUN (or some
variant) at the client
• In contrast SIP-based VoIP requires explicit
server configuration in applications
•Availability (WinOS, Linux, MacOS, PocketPC)
•Easy installation, same interface and functionality
•Does not require lots of resources (not even
bandwidth)
•Gives a certain feeling of privacy to users by
encrypting all of its traffic -- other IMs do not
7.7.2006 81
SKYPE: NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
•Skype is KaZaa-based
•Supernode-based hierarchical p2p network
•Can detect NATs and firewalls
•Skype Uses
•TCP for signaling
•UDP (preferably) and TCP for VoIP traffic (if
firewall/NAT-restricted)
•No fixed-ports
•Encryption on all but a few initialization packets
• 256-bit AES for calls and IMs
• 1024-bit RSA to negotiate symmetric AES
keys
7.7.2006 82
SKYPE: NETWORK ARCHITECTURE (2)
•Supernodes are elected based on

•Network availability (open Internet access)
•Bandwidth availability
•CPU, memory, play a smaller (if any) role
•Users cannot prevent their node from becoming a
supernode (unlike other p2p)
•May be able to influence the process, though
7.7.2006 83
SKYPE: NETWORK CHARACTERIZATION
•Supernodes
•Consume less than 205 b/s (!) 50% of the time
• Negligible CPU, memory consumption
•Relay data only 9.6% of the time
• Data sessions are less frequent than VoIP
ones
• File sizes tend to be considerably smaller
than in other p2p networks (photos, docs,
slide sets-- not mp3's and videos)
•Relay NAT-restricted calls:
• Median/mean call duration--2m50s/12m53s
• (PSTN calls average 3m)
• Max call duration--3h26m
7.7.2006 84
QoS WITH FLAT PRICING???
•QoS is about allowing the user to select between

quantitative performance guarantees
— Crowcroft et al. (2003)
•Personal opinion
•QoS as a service enabler which brings new
products in the market
•Unchain QoS from "cost linked to quality"
•Marketing should be about a service not the
technology
•Those familiar with "all-you-can-eat" buffets most
certainly appreciate the simplicity in pricing
•Yet, when one starts talking to me about QoS I check
that my wallet is in place…
7.7.2006 85
QoS WITH FLAT PRICING!!!
•Free nights and weekends has been quite a common

offering from US cellular operators for years now
•Vonage, Cablevision offer unlimited US & Canada
calls
•Do these schemes hurt revenues? Decrease profits?
•How much can one "eat" anyway?
7.7.2006 86
OPEN ISSUE: OPERATIONAL COMPLEXITY
•Based on his operational experience Bell (2003)

argues that
•Network Operation Center personnel have come
to believe that complex protocols destabilize a
network, mainly due to buggy implementations
•Case in point: introducing multicast in the LBNL
network led to difficult to trace bugs
•Amplification and Coupling principles
•IP multicast as a limit-case: Any QoS framework
should be less complex than multicast in order to gain
wide adoption
•As such, IntServ is pretty much done
7.7.2006 87
OPEN ISSUE: OPERATIONAL COMPLEXITY (2)
•Overprovisioning to the rescue: simple and

economical
•The "10% rule"
•Deal with network congestion
Throw bandwidth at the problem

or
Throw protocols at the problem
•There are cases, though, that bandwidth simply

cannot be thrown at the problem (regulatory and
CAPEX issues, spectrum licenses,… )
7.7.2006 88
OPEN ISSUE: TRAFFIC CLASSIFICATION
•Traffic classification
•End hosts are the natural points, but due to lack
of trust and maintaining administrative control,
gateways are preferred by NOCs
•Dynamic classification of packets into different
classes is not a trivial task
•Inhibits QoS deployment
•M. Roughan, et al. (2004):
•Framework for scalable, dynamic traffic
classification based on statistical application
signature
•Obtain signatures insensitive to the particular
application protocol
7.7.2006 89
END to END QoS
•User experienced Quality of Service is the one that

counts!
•Certain QoS mechanisms in some network technologies
(DiffServ, MPLS, SLA, 802.11e, … .)
•no method for end-to-end QoS from service to user
over various network technologies
•End-to-end QoS can be supported in a multivendor
environment with standards-based adherence.
7.7.2006 90
END to END QoS
•Total QoS is composed of several mechanisms on

different protocol layers (MAC scheduling,
retransmissions, packet sizes, routing decisions,
priorization, flow control, congestion control, … )
•mapping of QoS parameters between protocol
layers and optimisation within single technology
need to be done but is not enough
•User experience depends on the performance of
the whole chain of technologies between him and
the service -> interoperable QoS mechanisms
are needed
•Number of users and QoS needs of their applications
need to be fitted together with the restricted resources
available
7.7.2006 91
END-TO-END QoS IN HETEROGENEOUS

NETWORKS
• Network heterogeneity =>Quality of

Service has to be deployed end-to-end
• QoS schemes in IP Networks WLAN
• Best Effort
• Integrated Services (IntServ) 2G
• Differentiated Services (DiffServ) 3G
• WLAN QoS
• IEEE 802.11e being finalized PAN LAN
• Service Level Agreements (SLA)
• adjusting QoS classes of different
networks
• No End-to-End method standardised yet
• Application used by the User Equipment
should be able to specify its QoS needs
7.7.2006 92
EUREKA/ITEA EASY WIRELESS PROJECT

Factory WLAN
Network
Office WLAN
Network
IP NETWORK
Wide Services & Interactions
AdHoc Mobile Net Community
PAN Network
Local Services & Interactions

WLAN H/2
WLAN 802.11
GPRS/UMTS
7.7.2006 93
Easy Wireless
Allow seamless roaming between wireless
networks while maintaining Quality of Service
• EUREKA/ITEA project
• ITEA is a project clustering
organisation
Belgium
• funding from each country Finland
• 16 partners from 5 countries Netherlands

Norway
• Sept. 2004-Sept. 2007 Spain
• Total budget: 12 Million €
• Partners
• Thales Communications
• Telefónica
• 4 Universities
• 5 SME’ s
• 4 Research Centres
7.7.2006 94
SYNOPSIS
•QoS is a well-researched issue

•Mature frameworks developed for LANs, WANs,
and inter-AD
•No e2e QoS framework
• Mappings are not standardized
• Deployment is still slow
•QoS used as an enabler for new services, not as a
cash cow.
•QoS-awareness needs to be diffused throughout the
stack
•Overprovisioning not a bad thing, not antithetic to QoS
7.7.2006 95
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
•Sari Järvinen, Jukka Mäkelä, Jyrki Huusko (VTT)

•Stephen Sykes (Maxisat)
7.7.2006 96
FURTHER READING
• G. Armitage, Quality of service in IP networks: Foundations for a

multi-service Internet, Indianapolis, IN: Macmillan Technical
Publishing, 2000.
• G. Bell, "Failure to thrive: QoS and the culture of operational
networking", Proc. ACM SIGCOMM 2003 Workshops, Karlsruhe,
Germany, August 2003, pp. 115-119.
• B. K. Bhargava, "Guest Editorial: Quality of Service in Multimedia
Networks", Multimedia Tools and Applications, 17(2-3), 151-156.
• S. Blake, D. Black, M. Carlson, et al., An Architecture for
Differentiated Service, Internet RFC 2475, December 1998.
• B. Carpenter, & K. Nichols, "Differentiated Services in the Internet",
IEEE Proceedings, vol. 90, no. 9, 2002, pp. 1479-1494.
• K.G. Coffman & A.M. Odlyzko. "Internet growth: Is there a "Moore's
Law" for data traffic?," In: J. Abello, et al. (eds.), Handbook of
Massive Data Sets, Boston, MA: Kluwer, 2001.
• J. Crowcroft, S. Hand, R. Mortieret, et al., "QoS's downfall: at the
bottom, or not at all!", Proc. ACM SIGCOMM 2003 Workshops,
Karlsruhe, Germany, August 2003, pp. 109-114.
7.7.2006 97
FURTHER READING (2)
• S. A. Baset and H. Schulzrinne, "An Analysis of the Skype Peer-to-

Peer Internet Telephony Protocol" Proc. INFOCOM 2006, Barcelona,
Spain, April 2006.
• B. Davie, A. Charny, J.C.R. Bennett, et al., An Expedited Forwarding
PHB (Per-Hop Behavior), Internet RFC 3246, March 2002.
• B. Davie, "Deployment Experience with Differentiated Services," Proc.
ACM SIGCOMM 2003 Workshops, Karlsruhe, Germany, August
2003, pp. 131-136.
• D. Grossman, New Terminology and Clarifications for Diffserv,
Internet RFC 3260, April 2002.
• S. Guha, N. Daswani, and R. Jain. "An Experimental Study of the
Skype Peer-to-Peer VoIP System," Proc. 5th International Workshop
on Peer-to-Peer Systems (IPTPS '06), Santa Barbara, CA, February
2006.
• J. Heinanen, F. Baker, W. Weiss, J. Wroclawski, Assured Forwarding
PHB Group, Internet RFC 2597, June 1999.
7.7.2006 98
FURTHER READING (3)
• W. Hardy, QoS measurement and evaluation of telecommunications

quality of service, West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons, 2001
• T. Henderson & S. Bhatti, "Networked games: a QoS-sensitive
application for QoS-insensitive users?", Proc. ACM SIGCOMM 2003
Workshops, Karlsruhe, Germany, August 2003, pp. 141-147.
• G. Huston, "Quality of Service--Fact or Fiction?", The Internet
Protocol Journal, 3(1), 27-34.
• R. Lloyd-Evans, QoS in Integrated 3G Networks, Norwood, MA:
Artech House, 2002.
• K. Nichols, et al., Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS
Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 Headers, Internet RFC 2474, December
1998.
• K. Pentikousis, et al., “Active goodput measurements from a public
3G/UMTS network”, IEEE Communications Letters, 9(9), 802-804.
• H. Petroski, To engineer is human— the role of failure in successful
design, New York: Vintage Books,1992.
7.7.2006 99
FURTHER READING (4)
• M. Roughan, et al., "Class-of-service mapping for QoS: a statistical

signature-based approach to IP traffic classification", Proc. ACM
SIGCOMM IMC 2004, Taormina, Italy, October 2004 pp. 135-148.
• K. Singh and H. Schulzrinne, "Peer-to-peer internet telephony using
SIP". Proc of International Workshop on Network and Operating
Systems Support For Digital Audio and Video (NOSSDAV '05),
Stevenson, Washington, USA, June 2005, pp. 63-68.
• T. Ulseth, " A path towards common quality assessment of
narrowband and wideband voice", presented at Workshop on
Wideband Speech Quality in Terminals and Networks: Assessment
and Prediction, Mainz, Germany, June 2004.
• Z. Wang, Internet QoS architectures and mechanisms for quality of
service, San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2001.
• D. Wood, "Everything you wanted to know about video codecs— but
were too afraid to ask", EBU TECHNICAL REVIEW, July 2003.
7.7.2006 100
RELATED WEB SITES
•Easy Wireless
http://ew.thales.no
•Ambient Networks
www.ambient-networks.org
•MAGELLAN— Multimedia Application Gateway for

Enterprise Level LANs
www.magellan-itea.org
•PHOENIX— Jointly optimizing multimedia

transmissions in IP based wireless networks
www.ist-phoenix.org
7.7.2006 101

Quality of Service in Heterogeneous Networks: Current Status, Examples, and Open Issues

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QUALITY OF SERVICE IN HETEROGENEOUS NETWORKS:

CURRENT STATUS, EXAMPLES, AND OPEN ISSUES

Kostas Pentikousis and Milla Immonen

QOS DEFINED: RESEARCH

•QoS is a mature, well-researched topic

QOS DEFINED: DEPLOYMENT

•Several deployment attempts did not succeed in

QOS ACCORDING TO NETWORK OPERATORS

•The ability of the network to deliver traffic within a

REASONS TO DEPLOY QOS

• Huston (2000) notes three main reasons for

•QoS does not create any (new) capacity, but

OVERPROVISIONING: IT AIN'T BAD

Overprovisioning is not a new idea

Factor of safety (a.k.a. factor of ignorance)

The Harilaos Trikoupis bridge connecting Rio-Antirio in SW Greece

Infinitesimal extra cost

Deploy 802.11a/b/g although either of the 3 would be

OVERPROVISIONING vs. QoS

OVERPROVISIONING vs. QoS (2)

•But, then, which of the two figures below do you

OVERPROVISIONING vs. QoS (3)

•Do you consider this overprovisioned?

Interstate 105/Interstate 110 Interchange, Los Angeles, California,USA

OVERPROVISIONING vs. QoS (4)

•Well, the I-105/I-110 interchange (completed in 1993)

•This is an intermodal interchange: "It has three levels

OVERPROVISIONING vs. QoS (5)

•So, perhaps, excess capacity may not be a "bad

QoS vs. CHARGING

•QoS has been typically associated with tiered, e.g.

•Charging, the argument goes, is an effective means

QoS vs. CHARGING (2)

•QoS is by no means identical to tiered charging; it

•Instead, QoS can provide the framework to deliver a

QoS AS A BUSINESS ENABLER: maxinetti

•End users pay X euros for a given IPTV channel

•The operator, Maxisat, must differentiate flows from

•Differentiating between classes of traffic is easier,

"QoS THAT WORKS"

Cope with standard

Use IEEE 802.1P CoS

•It works :) and shows that CoS may be enough and it

•Why? Reliability and cost effectiveness

•Yet this is a closed, homogeneous network

• ATM allows point to point and point to multipoint virtual circuit to be

AAL= ATM Adaptation Layer

QoS IN CELLULAR NETWORKS

G Frequency Technology Data rate (kb/s) QoS

3.5 same HSDPA (extension Theoretically up to Available

QoS MECHANISMS IN UMTS

• Versatile needs of applications lead to traffic

UMTS QoS CLASSES

3G - Universal Mobile Telecommunications

UTRAN = UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network

RNC = Radio Network Controller Wap WWW, Application

• Provides access for real

3G AND BEYOND TEST NETWORK

WiMAX Enhancements for VTT's Laboratory Network

IEEE 802.11 WLAN: FAMILY OF STANDARDS

•IEEE Subgroups has standardised

WLAN can be thought as a wireless version of the

WLAN 802.11 NEW STANDARDS