QoE Issues of OTT Services over 5G Network
Huang Feng-hui, Zhou Wen-an
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Institute of Sensing Technology and Business, BUPT
Beijing, China
Du Yu
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Beijing, China
Abstract—Currently , 4G network becomes commercial in
large scale around the world and the industry has started the
fifth-generation mobile communication technology (5G)
research. Compared to 4G network, 5G network will support
larger mobility as well as higher transmission rate, higher user
experience rate, energy efficiency, spectrum efficiency and so
forth. All of these will boost a variety of multimedia services,
especially for Over-The-Top (OTT) services. So for, OTT
services have already gained great popularity and contributed
to large traffic consumption, which propose a challenge for
operators. As OTT services are designed to deliver over the
best effort Internet, the QoE management solutions for
traditional multimedia services are obsolete, which propose
new challenges in QOE management aspects for network and
service providers, especially for the 4G and future 5G network.
This paper attempts to present the technical challenges faced
by 5G network from QoE management perspective of OTT
services. Our objective is to enhance the user experience of
OTT services and improve network efficiency. We analysis the
characteristics and QoE factors of OTT services over 5G
wireless network. With the QoE factors and current QoE
management situation, we summarize OTT services QoE
quantification and evaluation methods, present QoE-driven
radio resource management and optimization solutions. Then,
we propose a framework and whole evaluation procedure
which aim at obtaining the accurate user experience value as
well as improving network efficiency and optimizing the user
experience.
Keywords-
OTT; QoE; resource management ; 5G
I. INTRODUCTION
With the development of mobile Internet and the
enhanced capabilities of mobile devices, Over-The-Top
(OTT) services, which the content is transported over the
best-effort Internet, has already gained a lot of popularity,
led to explosive growth of traffic. Meanwhile, 4G network
becomes commercial in large scale around the world and the
industry has started the fifth-generation mobile
communication technology (5G) research. Compared to 4G
network, 5G network will support 500 km/h of mobility,
10~100 times higher transmission rate, 0.1~1 Gb/s of user
experience rate, higher energy efficiency, spectrum
efficiency and so forth[1-3]. All of these will boost a variety
of multimedia services, especially for Over-The-Top (OTT)
services.
At present, mobile OTT services have a wide range of
types. According to their features and user demand, they can
be divided into streaming services, conversational services,
interactive services, transmission services and messaging
services, among which OTT streaming services and OTT
messaging services have great impact on the
telecommunications industry. OTT streaming services such
as You Tube, Netflix, Hulu, and other Web-based video
services will be displayed in ultra-high definition, 3D and
immersion mode which dominate large traffic consumption
and propose a higher requirement for network rate.
According to Cisco, the video traffic is substantially growing
which accounts for 52.8% of total mobile data traffic in
2011,is expected to reach 66.4% in 2015[4]. OTT messaging
services such as WeChat, TalkBox also gain large popularity
for its variety of new features, such as sending images, voice
messages and video segments. However, its frequent sending
packets and consuming much signaling resources is an
urgent issue for mobile operators to solve to enhance user
experience.
As OTT services are delivered over the best effort
Internet, they cannot use the QoE management program that
is used for traditional multimedia services, which also
propose new challenges in QOE management aspects for
network and service providers.
This paper presents an overview of QoE issues of OTT
service over 5G network. We aim at obtaining the accurate
user experience value as well as enhancing the user
experience and improve network efficiency by jointly
considering the QoE characteristics of the OTT services and
the available wireless resources in the operator network. The
rest of the paper is organized as follows: Firstly, Section II
respectively describes the characteristics of OTT streaming
services and OTT messaging services. In Section III, from
QoE factors aspect, QoE evaluation aspect and QoE-oriented
radio resource management and optimization aspect, we
presents state of art QoE management of OTT services; In
Section IV considering the current QoE management
situation, we summarize the challenge of QoE management
over 5G network. Finally, Section VI presents the
conclusions.
II. OTT
SERVICES OVER 3G AND 4G NETWORKS
OTT services are a variety of application services
provided to users via the Internet. As built over the basic
telecommunications services, provided by a third party, the
services do not need extra support from network operators.
This concept early is about distribution of audio and video
contents, gradually contains a variety of Internet-based
content and services. The schematic overview of the OTT
services is described in Fig. 1. Depending on the function
2014 Ninth International Conference on Broadband and Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications
978-1-4799-4173-5/14 $31.00 © 2014 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/BWCCA.2014.74
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