YouTube in the Move: Understanding the Performance of YouTube in Cellular Networks (BEST PAPER AWARD RUNNER UP)

YouTube is the most popular and volume-dominant service in today's Internet, and is changing the way ISPs manage their networks. Understanding the performance of YouTube traffic is paramount for ISPs, specially for mobile operators, who must handle the huge surge of traffic with the constraints and challenges of cellular networks. In this paper we present an empirical analysis of the performance of YouTube flows accessed through a national-wide cellular network, considering download throughput as well as end-user Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics. The analysis considers the characteristics and impacts of the Content Delivery Network hosting YouTube, and compares its behavior with other popular HTTP video streaming services accessed through cellular networks. The QoE analysis is performed through end-user device measurements, which directly reflect the experience of the end-users. Our study additionally shows the potentiality of monitoring YouTube performance in cellular networks directly from the smart-phones of the users, bypassing the traffic visibility loss at the core of the network introduced by traffic encryption (e.g., HTTPS).