Characteristics of mobile youtube traffic

Abstract

In this work we present the characterization of the mobile network traffic generated by one of the most relevant social networking applications: YouTube. Understanding its characteristics is of major importance to evaluate its impact on mobile networks and optimize network or application design. For this purpose, we have performed a set of experiments capturing traffic from Apple iOS and Android terminals connected to 3G mobile networks. Our results show that the video formats are 3GP formats, which use lower encoding rates than in other networks. As in accesses from other networks, YouTube servers transfer the video clip with an initial burst and a throttling phase, but they apply different parameters for clients located in mobile networks. Additionally, the mobile terminal can strongly influence the download. Our results with high-end Android terminals show that the client implements a dual-threshold buffer policy that interrupts and resumes the download depending on its buffer occupancy. Our results with iOS terminals show that the video clip download is not interrupted by the client, and a large amount of data may be accumulated at the player buffer. In mid-range Android terminals the TCP receive window may additionally throttle the download if the player buffer is filled up.