Is QUIC Quicker with HTTP/3? An Empirical Analysis of Quality of Experience with DASH Video Streaming

Video streaming contributes to significant traffic on the internet. MPEG-DASH is a standard method to deliver video using short segments served by a content delivery network over HTTP. The Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) algorithms used in MPEGDASH play a vital role in delivering better Quality of Experience (QoE) to the users. The ABR algorithms are known to perform well for HTTP/2 over TCP. To address the need for faster data delivery and lower connection establishment, a transport layer protocol QUIC and an application layer protocol HTTP/3 are being widely deployed. With this transition, it is highly desirable to revisit the ABR algorithms in terms of QoE they deliver. In this paper, the QoE/performance of the ABR algorithms are examined and compared between HTTP/3 over QUIC and HTTP/2 over TCP. Our results show that among the existing ABR algorithms, low latency streaming algorithms work in favor of HTTP/3 over QUIC and outperforms HTTP/2 over TCP in many scenarios. In lossy network conditions, HTTP/3 over QUIC achieves higher QoE by taking advantage of higher throughput of QUIC and downloading media segments faster than HTTP/2 over TCP.