AL-FEC for streaming services over LTE systems
Christos Bouras, Nikolaos Kanakis, Vasileios Kokkinos, Andreas Papazois · 2011
recently introduced the evolution of the third generation (3G) cellular networks, the Long Term Evolution (LTE) telecommunication system. A key aspect of LTE specifications is the enhancement of Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Services (MBMS), where the same content is transmitted to multiple users located in the service area. To support efficient download and streaming delivery, 3GPP has included Application Layer Forward Error Correction (AL-FEC) through Raptor codes in the MBMS standard. In this paper, we investigate the application of AL-FEC over MBMS streaming services. We consider the benefits of AL-FEC for a seamless multimedia streaming transmission to multiple users and we examine how the amount of FEC overhead can be adjusted under different packet loss conditions. For this purpose, we present a variety of simulation scenarios for the performance evaluation of FEC and furthermore we provide suggestions in order to achieve efficient use of Raptor codes. Keywords—forward error correction; long term evolution; raptor codes; streaming; multimedia broadcast and multicast