BitCover: Enhanced BitTorrent for interactive VoD streaming over 5G and WiFi-Direct

Abstract

This paper proposes the BitCover algorithm, which is a BitTorrent-based solution for video-on-demand streaming with user interactivity over 5G cellular networks. Its design primarily resides in: (i) forming clusters of mobile nodes to cooperatively exchange video pieces during playback, (ii) leveraging WiFi-Direct communication to offload part of the video-piece delivery from the 5G mobile-backhaul network, and (iii) deploying a novel peer-selection policy which improves communication-channel usage by prioritizing peers that own more downloaded video-pieces. Performance evaluation is carried out through simulations, assessing a set of metrics on a variety of multimedia scenarios. The final results are able to outline the algorithm's effectiveness compared to other recent literature proposals. Within this context, our key contribution is thus to provide valuable insights for multimedia-application projects concerning 5G-cellular networks.