Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) Distinguished Professor Ramesh K. Sitaraman and alumnus Kevin Spiteri ’21 Ph.D. have received a 2026 IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM) Test of Time Paper Award for their 2016 paper, “BOLA: Near-Optimal Bitrate Adaptation for Online Videos.”

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The paper, co-authored by Rahul Urgaonkar of Amazon Inc., has had a lasting impact on how video is streamed over the internet – the work has helped ensure that online videos play smoothly at high quality even when internet connections fluctuate, a challenge that affects billions of viewers worldwide.

Presented annually, the Test of Time Paper Award honors research published 10-12 years earlier that has demonstrated enduring scientific and real-world influence.

The widely cited paper proposed a new adaptive bitrate (ABR) algorithm called BOLA (Buffer Occupancy-based Lyapunov Algorithm), which is designed to enable smooth, high-quality video playback without interruptions. 

Since publication, BOLA has become widely used in online video streaming and serves as a benchmark for new ABR algorithms. The approach has helped major streaming platforms, including Amazon Prime, deliver smooth, high-quality video to millions of viewers each day. 

The work has received several additional honors, including the 2023 IEEE Communications Society William R. Bennett Prize. Spiteri’s doctoral dissertation based on this research also received both the 2021 ACM SIGMM Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis in Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications, and the 2021 DASH-IF Best Ph.D. Dissertation Award.

Read more about the paper and the INFOCOM Test of Time award in this article on the CICS website.