Evaluating the Impact of WiFi Offloading on Mobile Users of HTTP Adaptive Video Streaming

In a recent trend to lessen the load on cellular networks in cities, users are offered to offload mobile connections to lower cost WiFi networks. In this work, we conduct a simulative performance evaluation of the impact of WiFi offloading for a mobile end user of a HTTP adaptive video streaming (HAS) service depending on availability and range of the WiFi hotspots. The simulation is based on connectivity measurements from a German city and evaluates the key performance indicators for the QoE of HAS, i.e., initial delay, stalling, and quality adaptation. Additionally, a smartphone energy model is applied to assess the energy consumption during the streaming. The results indicate that WiFi offloading of HAS connections to public WiFi hotspots is not attractive for end users both in terms of QoE and energy consumption. However, it can be shown that WiFi offloading can be beneficial also for end users in case high bandwidths can be received via WiFi.