Dr. Alcardo Alex Barakabitze completed his PhD in QoE control and management of multimedia services in software defined and virtualized networks from the University of Plymouth, UK in 2019. He received the degree in Computer Science with Honours from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 2010 and Master Degree of Electronics and Communication Engineering with first class from Chongqing University, PR China, in May 2015.

Since October 2019 to September 2020, He has served as a Postdoctoral researcher in the QxLab research group, School of Computer Science, University College Dublin (UCD). He has worked as Marie Curie Fellow (October 2015– July 2019) in MSCA ITN QoE-Net. Dr. Barakabitze is recognised as the 2015 outstanding International Graduate Student of Chongqing University, China due his excellent performance.

He was a visiting researcher in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of Cagliari, Italy and the ITU-T-Standardization Department in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Dr. Barakabitze has participated in the ITU-T standardization process and made significant contributions since 2016 in the area of SDN/NFV, future network performance, QoS and QoE.

Dr. Barakabitze has served as session chair of Future Internet and NGN Architectures during the 2018 IEEE Communication Conference (ICC) in Kansas City, USA. He was also the Keynote and Panel Chairs at the International Young Researcher Summit on Quality of Experience in Emerging Multimedia Services (QEEMS 2017), that was held from May 29–30, 2017 in Erfurt, Germany. He has numerous publication in International peer-reviewed conferences and journals. He is a Reviewer for various journals and serves on technical program committees of leading conferences focusing on his research areas. His research interests are 5G, Quality of Experience (QoE), network management, video streaming services, SDN and NFV.

Joining the ELITE-S Programme is a great opportunity for me to make scientific advances in QoE and network management using SDN/NFV over 5G networks related research which goes beyond the state-of-the-art. This will empower me to become a leading expert in this fast-growing QoE in 5G research field.

My project within the ELITE-S Programme is set to develop an efficient management of future multimedia services over softwarized and virtualized 5G and beyond networks.

Project Summary

5GMOVIE: Management of Future Multimedia Services over Virtualized and Softwarized 5G Network 

The deployment of 4G/LTE networks has enabled a tremendous change in the volume and quality of mobile streaming video services. Mobile video services (e.g., YouTube and Mobile TV) on smart devices are expected to continue to grow with the emergence and evolution of future 5G and beyond networks. The Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecasts that over three quarters of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2023, accounting for 78% of the global mobile data traffic.

Maintaining and improving the Quality of Experience (QoE) for multimedia services delivery over future softwarized and virtualized systems will be key in 5G networks. Despite intensive efforts from content creators, service providers and network operators to enhance QoE for video streaming services, the overall management and control of multimedia on 5G and beyond networks with QoE guarantee is a challenging task.

To adequately address the QoE-related open issues and challenges in 5G networks, 5GMOVIE proposes an innovative softwarized and virtualized 5G ecosystem that will efficiently support QoE personalised service provisioning and management for emerging multimedia applications. 5GMOVIE will impact on providing a continuous QoE optimization and dynamic delivery control mechanisms of multimedia services for service providers to meet the end-user’s QoE demands on 5G and beyond systems.