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Academic Open Internet Journal www.acadjournal.com Volume 14, 2005

MEDIA STREAMING OVER WLAN USING STREAM CONTROL TRANSMISSION

PROTOCOL
V.Mariappan P.Narayanasamy
(vbrms@yahoo.com) (sam@annauniv.edu)
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Anna University, Chennai, INDIA – 600 025.

Abstract

Robust Media Streaming over 802.11 Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) with Quality
of Service is a very challenging task due to time-varying characteristics of wireless channel
and limited resources. It has been done traditionally using Transmission Control Protocol
(TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP). UDP is preferred for media applications for timely
delivery but it is not reliable. TCP is not effective enough for streaming applications because
its window based congestion control doesn’t provide instant rate adaptation and it has the use
of byte stream and single connection by the peer ends. This paper proposes the use of
Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) for video streaming over wireless LAN. The
benefit of using Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) in WLAN is its potential for its
increased productivity within the scope of new data services. We use SCTP for transmission of
audiovisual data since it is a reliable transport protocol operating on top of a potentially
unreliable connectionless packet service such as IP. Its design includes appropriate
congestion avoidance behavior and resistance to flooding and masquerade attacks.

Keywords: WLAN, IEEE802.11b, Media streaming, SCTP

1. Introduction

The use of IEEE 802.11 WLANs as an extension to the existing wired infrastructure,
offering the convenience of mobility and portability in the enterprise environment, is growing at
a rapid pace. The falling cost of WLAN products has also led to their increased use in
consumer homes. Although currently WLANs are predominantly used for data transfer, the
higher bandwidth provided by new WLAN technologies such as IEEE 802.11a and IEEE
802.11g will ultimately lead to their increasing use for multimedia transmissions. However, to
achieve a high level of acceptability and proliferation of wireless multimedia, in particular
wireless video, several key requirements need to be satisfied in order to provide a reliable and
efficient transmission

Video Transmission over wireless LAN poses many challenges, including coping
with bandwidth variations, data losses and heterogeneity of the receivers. Currently, each
network layer provides a separate solution to these challenges by providing its own optimized
adaptation and protection mechanisms. However this layered strategy does not always result

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in an optimal overall performance for the transmission of video.

Traditional TCP does not provide the exact functionality needed by the application
or provides more functionality than is needed. In the first case, the application needs to do
extra work to be able to use TCP, while in the latter; the extra functionality of TCP might be an
overhead. For instance, many applications need reliable message delivery, but TCP is a byte
stream oriented protocol. Message-oriented applications achieve their required functionality by
delineating the TCP stream into messages. Additionally, TCP provides both strict ordering and
reliability, but many applications may not need both. In this case, the applications will incur an
overhead in using TCP.

It is clear that, there is a need for a protocol that would allow both strict ordering
and the partial ordering of data as required by the application along with message oriented
transmission, all of these and some more desirable features are presented by SCTP and it
serves to solve the above-defined problem

The rest of this paper is structured as follows: Section 2 gives brief information about
SCTP, Section 3 talks about the System design for media streaming in WLAN, Section 4 deals
with Implementation of the design given in the previous section, Section 5 is about the
Conclusion and future extension of the paper.

2. Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP)

SCTP [8,9,10,11,15,16] can be used as the transport protocol for applications

where monitoring and detection of loss of session is required. For such applications, the SCTP
path/session failure detection mechanisms, especially the heartbeat, will actively monitor the
connectivity of the session. SCTP distinguishes different streams of messages within one
SCTP association. This enables a delivery scheme where only the sequence of messages
needs to be maintained per stream (partial in-sequence delivery), which reduces unnecessary
head-of-line blocking between independent streams of messages.

SCTP operates on two levels:

z Within an association the reliable transfer of datagrams is assured by using a checksum,

a sequence number and a selective retransmission mechanism. Without taking the initial
sequence into account, every correctly received data chunk is delivered to a second,
independent level.

z The second level realizes a flexible delivery mechanism, which is based on the notion of
several independent streams of datagrams within an association. Chunks belonging to
one or several streams may be bundled and transmitted in one SCTP packet provided
they are not longer than the current path MTU.
Detection of loss and duplication of data chunks is enabled by numbering all data chunks in
the sender with the so-called Transport Sequence Number (TSN). The acknowledgements
sent from the receiver to the sender are based on these sequence numbers. Retransmissions
are timer-controlled. The timer duration is derived from continuous measurements of the round
trip delay. Whenever such a retransmission timer expires, (and congestion control allows
transmissions) all non-acknowledged data chunks are retransmitted and the timer is started
again doubling its initial duration (like in TCP).
When the receiver detects one or more gaps in the sequence of data chunks, each
received SCTP packet is acknowledged by sending a Selective Acknowledgement (SACK),

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which reports all gaps. The SACK is contained in a specific control chunk. Whenever the
sender receives four consecutive SACKs reporting the same data chunk missing, this data
chunk is immediately retransmitted (fast retransmit). Some of the key advantages of using
SCTP are given below.
¾ Flow Control
¾ Selective Acknowledgement
¾ Congestion Control
¾ Multihoming

SCTP Packets

The protocol data units (PDU) of SCTP are called SCTP packets. SCTP runs
over IP, an SCTP packet forms the payload of an IP packet. An SCTP packet is composed of a
common header and chunks. Multiple chunks may be multiplexed into one packet up to the
Path-MTU size. A chunk may contain either control information or user data.

SCTP States

The initialization of an association is completed on both sides after the exchange of four
messages. The passive side (let's call it server) does not allocate resources until the third of
these messages has arrived and been validated. That is to ensure that the association setup
request really does originate from the right peer (without the possibility of blind spoofing).

SCTP streams

SCTP separates the reliable transfer of datagrams from the delivery mechanism. This
makes it possible to adapt protocol usage to the specific needs of the applications using
SCTP. Some applications may only need partial ordering of datagrams while others might
even be satisfied with a reliable transfer that does not guarantee any in-sequence
maintenance at all.

SCTP distinguishes different streams of messages within one SCTP association. This
enables a delivery scheme where only the sequence of messages needs to be maintained per
stream (partial in-sequence delivery), which reduces unnecessary head-of-line blocking
between independent streams of messages. Furthermore, SCTP provides a mechanism for
bypassing the sequenced delivery service, so that messages are delivered to the user of
SCTP as soon as they are completely received (order-of-arrival delivery).

Flow control and congestion control in SCTP have been designed in a way which
assures that SCTP traffic behaves in the network in the same way as TCP traffic does. This
enables a seamless introduction of SCTP services into existing IP networks.

3. Design
The proposed architectural design is shown in Figure 1. The transmission in
SCTP was done by means of transfer of SCTP packets. The protocol data units (PDU) of
SCTP are called SCTP packets. SCTP runs over IP and SCTP packet forms the payload of an
IP packet. An SCTP packet is composed of a common header and chunks as shown in Figure
2. Multiple chunks may be multiplexed into one packet up to the Path-Maximum Transmission
Unit (MTU) size. A chunk may contain either control information or user data. The structure of
network packets as sent by an SCTP endpoint, as well as the different types of data that could
be sent are shown in the diagram. The SCTP message format naturally allows support of

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bundling of multiple DATA and control chunks in a single message, to improve transport
efficiency. Use of bundling is controllable by the application, so that bundling of initial
transmission can be prohibited. Bundling will naturally occur on retransmission of DATA
chunks, to further reduce any chance of congestion.

Figure 1. Architectural Design

Instead of the three-phase connection setup for TCP, the initialization of an association
is completed after the exchange of four messages. The passive side of the as-association
does not allocate resources for the association until the third of these messages has arrived
and been validated. The Association is established between the Client and the Server. During
the course of the Association the Server and Client take various different states. The state
transition diagrams of the Server and the Client are shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4
respectively.

Figure 2. SCTP Packet Format

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Figure 3 State Transition Diagram of the Server

4. Implementation

The implementation was done in IEEE 802.11a WLAN using VC++ 6.0. The media data
can be captured using real time digital camera and from the database for on demand delivery.
The media data along with the audio is mixed and is streamed in the wireless network as an
SCTP packet. Since SCTP runs over IP, an SCTP packet forms the payload of an IP Packet.
An SCTP packet is composed of a common header and chunks. Multiple chunks may be
multiplexed into one packet up to the path-MTU size. A chunk may contain either control
information or user data. Hence we multiplex the visual, audio and control information chunks
into an SCTP packet up to the said Path-

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Figure 4 State Transition Diagram of the Client

MTU size. Hence the allowed hosts associated with the Access Points (APs) can receive the
SCTP packets. The advantage here from the users perspective is that as soon as the SCTP
packets are being received, the media playback starts using media player, since a packet
contains all the information for the playback to start. The client host need not wait for the
completion of the reception of the entire media information to have a playback. As the
playback continues the other packets transmitted from the server gets received, allowing a
continuous playback. Distribution of packets did not create any problem. Figure 5 shows a
sample output of a video clip using SCTP transmission.

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Figure 5 Sample Output

5. Conclusion

This paper presents the concept of using SCTP to develop a framework for media
streaming over wireless LAN. The issue of media streaming over WLAN has been taken care
by using SCTP and proof of concept implementation has been done. This work overcomes
delay experienced by end-hosts otherwise. Also this implementation overcomes flow control
and congestion control problems. In order to use the system for other applications security
issues must be addressed. The usefulness of SCTP can further be exploited by using it in
high loss environment and can be used in vulnerable environment to experience the security
features of the SCTP against Masquerade Attack.

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All rights reserved, © March, 2000

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