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5G wireless networks leverage complex scheduling, retransmission, and adaptation mechanisms to maximize their efficiency. These mechanisms interact to produce significant fluctuations in uplink and downlink capacity and latency, markedly impacting the the performance of real-time communication and multimedia applications, such as video conferencing. These applications are particularly sensitive to such fluctuations, resulting in lag, stuttering, distorted audio, and low video quality. In this paper, we present a cross-layer view of 5G networks and their impact on and interaction with video-conferencing applications. We conduct novel, detailed measurements of both private CBRS and commercial carrier cellular network dynamics, capturing physical- and link-layer events and correlating them with their effects at the network and transport layers, and the video-conferencing application itself. Our two datasets comprise days of low-rate campus-wide Zoom telemetry data, and hours of high-rate, correlated WebRTC-network-5G telemetry data. Based on these data, we trace performance anomalies back to root causes, identifying 24 previously unknown causal event chains that degrade 5G video conferencing. Armed with this knowledge, we build Domino, a tool that automates this process and is user-extensible to future wireless networks and interactive applications.
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This content will become publicly available on November 18, 2025
Athena: Seeing and Mitigating Wireless Impact on Video Conferencing and Beyond
Rapid delay variations in today’s access networks impair the QoE of low-latency, interactive applications, such as video conferencing. To tackle this problem, we propose Athena, a framework that correlates high-resolution measurements from Layer 1 to Layer 7 to remove the fog from the window through which today’s video-conferencing congestion-control algorithms see the network. This cross-layer view of the network empowers the networking community to revisit and re-evaluate their network designs and application scheduling and rate-adaptation algorithms in light of the complex, heterogeneous networks that are in use today, paving the way for network-aware applications and application-aware networks.
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- PAR ID:
- 10567698
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 9798400712722
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 103 to 110
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Video Conferencing Network Measurement 5G Networks
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Irvine, CA, USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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