CoS enforcement for HTTP adaptive streaming

As the HTTP-based segmented video delivery paradigm continues to grow in popularity, the ability to enforce differentiated classes of service (CoS) across large numbers of clients becomes increasingly important. Differentiated services are an important monetization technique for content service providers. In over-the-top (OTT) video delivery, client-based CoS enforcement is necessary for federated delivery across multiple operator networks. In this paper, we address the question of how to implement distributed client-based CoS enforcement for OTT video delivery. Our solution integrates CoS-awareness into the client rate adaptation algorithm using segment download aborts to enforce relative bandwidth virtualization. This scheme does not require the client to be aware of other clients in the network or of specific network resource limitations. We compare our distributed approach with manifest-based CoS enforcement and provide simulation results which demonstrate the network utilization advantages of our approach.