Simulation and Modeling of Packet Loss on VoIP Traffic: A Power-Law Model

In this paper, through an extensive analysis it is shown that VoIP traffic jitter exhibits self-similar and heavy-tail characteristics. From this analysis, we observed that α-stable distribution particularly gives the best goodness of fit; this fact has implications on the design of de-jitter buffer size. On the other hand, we investigate the packet loss effects on the VoIP jitter, and present a methodology for simulating packet loss on VoIP jitter traces. In order to represent the packet loss process, the two state Markov model or Gilbert model is used. We proposed two new models for VoIP traffic; these models are based on voice traffic measurements, and allow relating the Hurst parameter and α parameter with the packet loss rate. We found that the relationship between these parameters and packet loss rate obeys a power-law function with three fitted parameters. Key-Words: VoIP, QoS, Packet Loss Rate, Jitter, Heavy-Tail Distributions, Self-Similar, α Parameter, Hurst Parameter, De-Jitter Buffer, Two-State Markov Model