Video streaming based services over 4G networks: Challenges and solutions

Abstract

4G networks must not only show high bandwidth but also provide an excellent user experience, especially for video streaming, which is a key technique for multimedia services on 4G networks like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Television over IP (TvIP), broadcatching, interactive digital television, and Video on Demand (VoD). These services are challenging because of the well-known problems of the radio channel. Efficient solutions are designed by considering cross layer techniques. In this chapter the authors firstly review a number of video streaming based services, and then they present the basic operation of the video streaming and its problems in 4G networks, emphasizing Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) technology. In order to solve these problems they propose two cross layer strategies (one for access networks and another for ad hoc networks) and integrate the first one into two application level solutions. The authors test the user experience that accesses a Web portal including a VoD with a mobile telephone equipped with WiFi and High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) Wireless Network Card Interfaces (WNIC). Results invite them to be optimistic.