QoE-based resource reservation for unperceivable video quality fluctuation during Handover in LTE

Providing smooth Handover (HO) for video applications over wireless networks is often difficult due to the different amount of available resources from cell to cell. In this paper, we propose a QoE-based scheme that statically or dynamically reserves resources in order to maintain unperceivable quality fluctuation during HO for video delivery in LTE mobile networks. Through simulations, we show that reallocating the wireless resource in a cross-layer fashion is not enough to maintain the video quality within unperceivable range. Reserving fixed amount of resources solves the problem, however, it leads to inefficient resource utilization and overall service quality degradation. To reduce unnecessary resource reservation, we propose reserving the actual resource demand dynamically upon a prior knowledge of HOs. A comparison between our proposed schemes and a conventional QoE-based scheme is done by performing simulations using an OPNET LTE simulator. Results show that our proposed schemes lead to significant improvements of HO user-perceived quality.