Playout-buffer aware hand-off control for wireless video streaming

Wireless hand-off control typically considers only connectivity strength from the mobile terminal to alternative access points. In wireless video streaming, however, where video freezing must be avoided at the mobile terminal, the playout buffer level should also be considered by hand-off control. In this paper, we first develop a model capturing hand-off dynamics under video streaming, and design a new playout buffer aware hand-off control. It aims to avert a video freeze for as long as possible, maximizing the expected time until freezing. We compute the optimal control in the general case of multiple access points and multiple connectivity strength states per channel. The optimal hand-off control is then computationally probed in specific relevant cases. It is demonstrated that there is a certain playout buffer threshold level - a buffer tipping point - above which a hand-off should be attempted. Of course, this tipping point depends on the access point to mobile channel statistics.