Quality of Experience (QoE) Assurance by a Multi-path Balanced Traffic-Splitting Algorithm in MPLS Networks

Abstract

Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology has proven its worth for delivering new services while at the same time allowing migration from old to new generation networks. Avoidance of congestion is one of the major performance objectives of traffic engineering in MPLS networks. Load balancing can prevent the congestion caused due to inefficient allocation of network resources. Another important aspect in network performance is the end user perception of the quality delivered by the network called the Quality of Experience (QoE). The final arbiter of service performance is the end user whose opinion about quality is based on his or her perception. This end user perception of audiovisual quality is quantified by Mean opinion score (MOS). The network parameters that affect the MOS are delay, Jitter and loss.Though a number of multipath load balancing algorithms have been proposed in [1] and [2], none have proportioned traffic keeping the QoE constraint in mind. Here, a multipath load balancing algorithm is used to optimally split the incoming traffic based on the effect of average delay and jitter offered by the network so that the QoE measure of MOS is maximized. These initial results indicate that desirable QoE can be achieved by finite and small number of executions of an appropriate iterative load balancing algorithm once the step-size and the weights of the composite cost function representing combined effect of average delay and jitter are judiciously chosen.