Distributed Rate Control for Video Streaming over Wireless Networks with Intersession Network Coding

In this paper, we study the problem of rate control over a wire-less network with intersession network coding. We formulate the general problem as a utility maximization problem, show that it has a distributed solution and demonstrate convergence through numerical simulations. Rate control for video stream-ing fits naturally within this framework. However, the time-varying nature of video content implies time-varying utilities and affects the underlying network coding opportunities. A key observation is that by delaying some scenes and by opti-mizing the rate allocation over longer time intervals, we can create more network coding opportunities and thus achieve higher total utility. We develop distributed rate allocation schemes that exploit this observation and we demonstrate the benefit through numerical simulations. This paper is a step to-wards understanding the interaction between rate control and network coding and eventually towards making media trans-port protocols network-coding aware. Index Terms — Rate allocation, network coding, video streaming, wireless networks, utility maximization, cross