Quality of service management for IPTV services support in VANETs: a performance evaluation study

In order to deliver a qualitative Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service over vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), a quality of service (QoS) mechanism is needed to manage the allocate of network resources to the diverse IPTV application traffic demands. Unlike other mobile network, VANETs have certain unique characteristic that presents several difficulties in providing an effective QoS. Similarly, IPTV requires a constant stream for QoS which at the moment is quite difficult due to the inherent VANET characteristics. To provide an effective QoS that will meet the IPTV application service demands, VANETs, must satisfy the compelling real-time traffic streaming QoS requirement (i.e., minimum bandwidth allocation, packet loss and jitter). In this report, we evaluate via simulation the feasibility of deploying quality IPTV services over VANETs, by characterizing the association between the IPTV streaming quality determining factors (i.e., throughput, delay, loss, jitter) and the IPTV quality degradation, with respect to node density and node velocity. Furthermore, we used an objective QoS metric (Media-Delivery-Index) to identify, locate and address the loss or out-of-order packet. We outline how, using these information’s can support in shaping network parameters to optimize service flows. The implementation assures a priority for handling IPTV traffic, such that maximise the usage of VANETs resources, and opens the possibility that loss and delay can be minimised to a degree that could guarantee quality IPTV service delivery among vehicle in a vehicular network system.