End-to-end Quality of Experience

Final workshop Thursday 29 January 2009

@ IMEC, Heverlee Programma 13:00 Welcome & sandwich

13:30 Opening speech

13:40 General presentation

14:00 Demo slot 1 – Multimedia

Error-resilient scalable video coding and streaming over error-prone packet networks (IBBT – ETRO - VUB) The demo illustrates real-time video data encoding based on the Scalable Video Coding extension of H.264, followed by FEC-based error protection and data streaming over an IP based network. The video coding system demonstrates the adaptation of the data rate and protection levels depending on the available bandwidth and packet loss rate on the channel.

Scalable video codec: implementation, adaptation and cross-layer control (IBBT – IMEC -NES and IBBT – MMLAB - UGent) This demo shows an end-to-end video delivery chain for scalable H.264/AVC video (SVC) and highlights a number of important components: transparent on-the-fly bitstream adaptation, bitstream optimization based on external QoS/QoE information, and real-time SVC video decoding. As the limited battery capacity of the portable devices becomes a main challenge in wireless video communication, this demo also shows how to minimize the total energy consumption by a cross-layer controller steering at run-time the configuration of the major energy consumers in a handheld device: both the SVC encoder and the wireless transmitter.

14:35 Demo slot 2 – Wireless and Thin Clients

Wireless Thin Client hybrid protocol, switching between streams of different quality (IBBT - IBCN – UGent and IBBT – PATS - UA) Cloud computing, client resource virtualisation, netwerk centric computing are important evolutions in the current internet. One of the key technologies to support these trends is the development of efficient protocols that support the interaction between the client and the remote server. In this demo we will concentrate on a novel hybrid wireless thin client protocol showing clearly the benefits over the traditional thin client protocols, especially for multimedia content access where the quality of experience is very important. The demo will also illustrate a novel adaptation framework based on the service oriented architectures paradigm: media adaptations will beenacted depending on the current value of the systems resources.

Energy-aware cross-layer control of a reconfigurable radio implementation (IBBT – IMEC -NES) Considering a real reconfigurable radio transceiver, this demo shows cross-layer (XL) control techniques for data transmission over a WLAN network. The goal is to offer the required wireless performance (i.e., data throughput) at minimum energy consumption. This is achieved by adapting the configuration of the wireless transmitter to the channel fluctuations through appropriate XL radio control, leveraging on the available scalability in the radio system.

15:10 Demo slot 3 – Pervasive security

Unobservable VOIP (IBBT – COSIC – KU Leuven) Although encryption protects the content of communications, it still leaves associated traffic data open to collection and data mining. These data concerning who is talking to whom and for how long are a valuable source of intelligence and a serious threat to privacy. Often the gathering of such data is the first step towards target selection for attack. We demonstrate why present day VoIP communications are not privacy-friendly. To do this we use the most popular VoIP technology today – Skype. Using our demo system UV next we demonstrate how some of the pointed privacy issues of Skype may be solved. UV is a two-node system for unobservable voice communication on the Internet. UV provides unobservability of communication by hiding the fact that there is a conversation taking place. To achieve this, the system uses techniques such as encryption, constant traffic generation, equal packet sizes, and a fixed packet sending schedule. With the described demo we show how all this works in practice. Protecting applications from buffer overflows (IBBT - DistriNet KU Leuven and IBBT – COSIC – KU Leuven) Buffer overflows constitute an important threat to applications written in C. In this demo we show how such a vulnerability in the UVOIP application can allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the computer running this client. To protect against this attack we demonstrate a novel countermeasure that prevents the attacker from being able to use the buffer overflow to execute injected code. This countermeasure works by separating control data from regular data in applications. It has a negligible overhead on performance for the application and is broadly applicable.

15:40 Coffee break

16:00 The European Response to Network Neutrality in the Context of the Electronic

Communications Reform Liyang Hou, IBBT – ICRI – KU Leuven

Network neutrality in principle involves preventing network operators from discriminating against particular Internet content providers with a purpose to exclude the latter from the market. It is one of the key subjects in the context of reforming the Regulatory Framework for electronic communications. This presentation reports the major findings of ICRI’s last deliverable, with a focus on the following three issues: (1) the specific problems in relation to network neutrality; (2) the latest legislative development concerning network neutrality; and (3) a legal assessment with regard to these proposals.

16:40 Situating Net Neutrality in a broader context. Towards an analytical framework for the distribution of content on the Internet.

Leo Van Audenhove, IBBT SMIT – VUB Luciano Morganti, IBBT – SMIT – VUB

Net neutrality often refers to the use of technology—network management techniques—in the distribution of content on the Internet. Net neutrality in effect is a negative term objecting any interference in the flow of content over networks and more particularly in the last mile. Within the E2E Quality of Experience project we have developed an analytical framework which differentiates the use of technologies within the network according to their objectives and possible impacts. The use of technologies to shape the flow of content within networks is related to the struggle for the distribution of content. It should therefore be understood as an element in the control over the value chains of online products and services and be analyzed in a much broader framework. In our framework we look at the control over the time, space, quality, speed, access and attention dimensions of distribution. We furthermore make the link between technologies in the network, business models and government regulation.

17:00 “Evaluating Quality of Experience: bridging the gap between technical parameters and

human experience factors” Katrien De Moor, IBBT – MICT – UGent Lieven De Marez, IBBT – MICT - UGent

In this talk, two important challenges linked to the Quality of Experience-concept that were addressed within the scope of this project, are discussed. The first challenge deals with the definition of QoE and its relation to concepts such as Quality of Service and User Experience. Although it was found that QoE is an important research topic in various fields, a holistic approach to QoE was still lacking. Therefore, a conceptual model of QoE was developed. In addition, we also focus on the evaluation and measurement of QoE. Whereas measurement approaches based on the well-established QoS tradition mainly focus on ‘what’ is happening on the network by investigating parameters such as bandwidth, packet loss, jitter, .. they fail to provide accurate insight in the ‘why’-dimension: e.g. why is the user behaving in a certain way? Why does the user feel unhappy or frustrated? We therefore aim to propose a user-centric framework for QoE-measurement, which enables us to link true user-centric measures to relevant technical parameters.

17:00 Q&A 17:15 Drink