This Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a novel cooperative networking technology for delivering video to a group of mobile devices within proximity of each other. Cellular providers cannot currently meet the demand for mobile video, which grows faster than wireless access bandwidth. The problem is particularly challenging when a large number of users in a cell access the same content at roughly the same time, as it is the case during real-time popular events. The proposed solution allows a group of mobile devices to leverage device-to-device connections and to use all cellular connections in the group in a cooperative manner, so as to efficiently utilize resources and adapt to wireless variations. Each device can use simultaneously two network interfaces: cellular to connect to a remote server and download parts of the content, and another (WiFi or Bluetooth) to connect to the rest of the group and exchange those parts. The technical novelty lies in the design of the cooperative network architecture as well as in the algorithms in each building block. As a result, the common rate from the source to each user can increase by a factor up to the group size.
The broader impact/commercial potential of this project stems from the value proposition it brings to all players involved in mobile video delivery. The proposed technology enables mobile users, within proximity of each other, to download a video faster and consume less cellular bandwidth. The end result is not only a better user experience (faster download, reduced cost of data, as well as synchronous viewing and easy sharing) but also access bandwidth savings with direct benefits to the entire ecosystem including cellular carriers, content providers, device manufacturers, and application developers. Furthermore, the solution does not require changes in the infrastructure and can be implemented as a mobile application, thus can be readily adopted. With the unprecedented growth in mobile devices and services, this project has potential for significant social and economic impact. Example customer segments include the following: young people who want to share video, college athletic departments that provide content to fans in the stadiums, cellular providers who want to improve subscribers? experience while saving access bandwidth, and online education in remote areas with poor wireless connectivity.
The goal of this SBIR Phase I Project was to develop a novel cooperative networking technology to quickly and efficiently deliver video to a group of mobile devices, within proximity of each other. More specifically, we designed and developed mobile software (Microcast) that allows a user to boost her downlink bandwidth by aggregating all available wireless connections, including those on the user's own mobile device (e.g., WiFi and cellular, which we refer to as Solo Mode) as well as on other nearby devices (e.g. multiple cellular connections, which we refer to as Group Mode). The end-result is that the user can download content fast, reliably and at low cost. We deployed our core technology in two ways. First, we developed a prototype mobile app (VideoBee) that was made available on GooglePlay since January 2014 and has, at the time of this report, approximately 40,000 users and a rating 4.4/5. Second, we developed a software development kit (BoostSDK), which can be incorporated into other video streaming and content downloading apps and boost their performance, transparently to the user. Apart from demonstrating the feasibility of our technical solution, these two products enabled us to explore the market opportunity in the B2C and B2B spaces, respectively.
