Efficient Media Routing for Media over QUIC: Balancing Cost and Latency

Abstract

Media accounts for over 80% of global Internet traffic, much of it being latency-sensitive. The IETF’s Media over QUIC (MoQ) protocol draft leverages QUIC for calable media delivery, using a relay-based architecture similar to CDNs. However, current MoQ implementations rely on full mesh relay networks, leading to high network utilization and scalability issues. In this work, we present a novel approach to enforce media routing and lower the overall costs of operating a MoQ relay topology while satisfying delay service level objectives. We formulate the problem mathematically, analyze its complexity, and develop optimal and heuristic algorithms. We integrate our approach with a widely-used MoQ implementation. Our evaluation using different synthetic and realistic topologies shows improvements in cost efficiency while keeping all delay constraints satisfied.