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Digital games represent one of the most compelling fields in computer science, embodying a wide variety of technical challenges. Thanks to the evolution of streaming and broadband technology, new service provisioning schemes have emerged. Remote play streaming services represent an interesting case study deserving a thorough investigation. To this end, we present a network measurement study that can be useful to create traffic models and help researchers identify issues, guiding architecture, and protocol design. Moving beyond latency and jitter issues, our purpose is to understand whether remote play streaming services can operate through regular connectivity or, on the contrary, are doomed to fail as happened to some pioneer providers. We have hence deployed a testbed to test the impact of network limitations and, different from previous studies, we particularly emphasize the role of the available bandwidth in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability of network softwarization and virtualization technology in the field of telecommunications has opened the door to a radical review of the applications, protocols, and deployment models. In this evolving framework, old assumptions and constraints specific to satellite communications must be carefully re-assessed. To this aim, we revisit the role of the performance enhancing proxy (PEP), replaced by a chain of custom virtual network functions properly enabled to optimize common web traffic performance over a backhaul dynamically enabled with a supplementary satellite link. The resulting virtual PEP (vPEP) is compliant with the breakthrough virtualization and slicing paradigms and can fruitfully exploit the advanced features of the most recent IETF technologies such as QUIC and MPTCP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud-based entertainment is gaining momentum. With the cost of commodity hardware lowering by the day and the consumer market penetration of in-house digital entertainment systems, a new generation of interactive services has come into being. This new technological wave has launched new content producers and providers that are rapidly adapting to match the consumer demand. In this context, thin client or cloud-based gaming is attracting much attention, shifting the computational burden to the cloud while the consumer enjoys a fat video feed accessed through its thin client via the shared wireless gateway. However, this model of interaction raises new challenges that demand for specific networking solutions aimed at addressing the heterogeneous flow coexistence problem at the home wireless gateway. We propose a solution to this problem by devising a Transmission Control Protocol Vegas-like congestion control algorithm deployed on top of the home gateway. Our solution works out of the box with the standard protocols at the server, router, and client levels, thereby making deployment straightforward. Experimental assessment with real traffic traces shows that our solution addresses the problem effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]