A Demonstration of Video over a User Centric Prioritization Scheme for Wireless LANs

Due to the unreliable nature of the wireless medium, provisioning of the quality of service (QoS) in wireless LANs is by far more complicated than in wired networks. In this demo we show the efficiency of a new QoS support scheme that is based on an user centric approach. The new mechanism takes under consideration the identification of the station that generates the traffic additionally to the traffic itself. Therefore, it uses a second prioritization level on the top of the one that is implemented in IEEE 802.11e. It first defines groups of stations based on their MAC addresses and it assigns different priorities to different groups. Under this classification, stations are served based on the prioritization of the group they belong. Among stations with same priority, traffic is scheduled based on the priorities given by 802.11e. The new scheme is implemented using open source drivers and 802.11g WiFi cards. In the demo, a video clip is streamed from a server to a client with high priority under heavy traffic load. The underlying wireless transport alternates between the classic IEEE 802.11e and the new prioritization scheme. The new scheme delivers a smooth and jitter-free user experience, while the video playout over IEEE 802.11e experiences noticeable jitter and frequent distortions. The demo clearly demonstrates the performance superiority of the new implemented scheme, as compared to the legacy IEEE 802.11e.