Design and implementation of video streaming hot-plug between wired and wireless networks using SCTP

Video streaming hot-plug is defined as keeping video streaming to be continuous when a host is switched from wired/wireless to wireless/wired networks, or from one wireless network to another wireless network. In this paper, video streaming hot-plug mechanisms using Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), which is a new transport layer protocol supporting multihoming, are investigated. Using SCTP, a host can establish multiple paths, e.g. one through the wired network and another one through the wireless network, to communicate with its peer. Two SCTP extensions, the SCTP ADDIP extension and (Partially Reliable) PR-SCTP are adopted to implement the corresponding system called MOVIDEO. The SCTP ADDIP extension enables the host to dynamically configure IP addresses and the primary path used for the association, whereas PR-SCTP provides a partially reliable transmission option for the host to transmit data. Performance evaluation of the MOVIDEO system is provided in this paper. In addition to MOVIDEO, three other configurations of SCTP, including the triggering patterns of changing primary path and the transmission patterns of streaming video data, are implemented for performance comparison. The experimental results demonstrate that, using the proposed SCTP-based video streaming hot-plug mechanism, the connection of the video streaming service would not be broken and the playout of the video can be kept smooth during the process of video streaming hot-plug.