Sync & Sense Enabled Adaptive Packetization VoIP

The quality and reliability problem of VoIP comes from the fact that VoIP relies on the network to transport the voice packets. The inherent problem of VoIP is that there is a mismatch between VoIP and the network. Namely, VoIP has a strict requirement of bandwidth, delay, and loss, but the network (particularly best-effort service networks) cannot guarantee such a requirement. A solution to deal with this problem is to enhance VoIP with an adaptive-rate control, called adaptive-rate VoIP. Adaptive-rate VoIP has the ability to detect the state of the network and adjust the transmission accordingly. Therefore, it gives VoIP the intelligence to optimize its performance, and making it resilient and robust to the service offered by the network. The objective of this dissertation is to develop an adaptive-rate VoIP system. We take a comprehensive approach in the study and development. Adaptive-rate VoIP is generally composed of three components: rate adaptation, network state detection, and adaptive-rate control. In the rate adaptation component, we study optimizing packetization, which can be used as an alternative means for rate adaptation. An advantage is that rate adaptation is independent of the speech coder. With this method, an adaptive-rate VoIP can be based on any constant bitrate speech coder. The study shows that the VoIP performance is primarily affected by three factors: packetization, network load, and significance of VoIP traffic; and, optimizing packetization allows us to ensure the highest possible performance. In the network state detection component, we propose a novel measurement methodology called Sync & Sense of periodic stream. Sync & Sense is unique in that it can virtually synchronize the transmission and reception timing of the VoIP session without requiring a synchronized clock. The simulation result shows that Sync & Sense can accurately measure one-way network delay. Other benefits of Sync & Sense include the ability to estimate the available network bandwidth and the full spectrum of the delays of the VoIP session. In the adaptive-rate control component, we consider the design choices and develop an adaptive-rate control that makes use of the first two components. The integration of the three components is a novel and unique adaptive-rate VoIP called Sync & Sense Enabled Adaptive Packetization VoIP. The simulation result shows that our adaptive VoIP can optimize the performance under any given network condition, and deliver a better performance than traditional VoIP. The simulation result also demonstrates that our adaptive VoIP possesses the desirable properties, which include fast response to network condition, aggressiveness to compete for the needed share of bandwidth, TCP-friendliness, and fair bandwidth allocation