Investigating the Impact of Channel Metrics in 5G NSA and SA on Video Streaming QoE

Evaluating the Quality of Experience (QoE) for over-the-top (OTT) video streaming is crucial due to increasing video traffic demands for delivering satisfactory user experiences. This work presents and evaluates a rich dataset capturing real-world 5G network performance and its impact on YouTube video streaming QoE. We utilized two US-based 5G networks to stream 2D YouTube videos and monitor cellular Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at 1-second granularity. These KPIs include Channel Level Metrics (CLMs), such as RSRP, RSRQ, and SNR, and objective QoE metrics for various scenarios, including indoor and outdoor environments with different mobility conditions. We correlate CLMs KPIs in 5G Standalone (SA) and Non-Standalone (NSA) deployments with YouTube’s objective QoE. Our study shows performance differences where 5G SA encounters more streaming stalls during outdoor mobility than NSA, while SA supports higher resolutions in static indoor settings.