SCTP Multi-streaming: Study of Transmission of Partially Reliable and Reliable Data Using Dynamic Stream Priorities

Abstract

Majority of internet users still rely on dial-up modem or DSL connections which are often inadequate for comfortable viewing of real-time multimedia. The end-points must then provide a way to transmit multiple data-types in parallel and must effectively respond to periods of insufficient bandwidth. Using multiple TCP connections, defeats TCP-friendly congestion control. With the introduction of multi-streaming in Stream Control Transmission Protocol, applications are now presented with a new transport layer mechanism for multimedia transmissions. Multi-streaming provides an aggregation mechanism with logical demarcation for transferring different objects belonging to the same application. Traditional SCTP makes use of round-robin or FIFO algorithm for scheduling the various streams. But during periods of low bandwidth availability, transmission of critical data should take precedence over non-critical data. Previous work proposes a strict priority scheme suitable for only reliable data. Our work investigates using dynamic priorities with both partially reliable and reliable data.