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Delivering Live Multimedia Streams to Mobile Hosts in a Wireless Internet with Multiple Content Aggregators

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Abstract

We consider the distribution of channels of live multimedia content (e.g., radio or TV broadcasts) via multiple content aggregators. In our work, an aggregator receives channels from content sources and redistributes them to a potentially large number of mobile hosts. Each aggregator can offer a channel in various configurations to cater for different wireless links, mobile hosts, and user preferences. As a result, a mobile host can generally choose from different configurations of the same channel offered by multiple alternative aggregators, which may be available through different interfaces (e.g., in a hotspot). A mobile host may need to handoff to another aggregator once it receives a channel. To prevent service disruption, a mobile host may for instance need to handoff to another aggregator when it leaves the subnets that make up its current aggregator’s service area (e.g., a hotspot or a cellular network).

In this paper, we present the design of a system that enables (multi-homed) mobile hosts to seamlessly handoff from one aggregator to another so that they can continue to receive a channel wherever they go. We concentrate on handoffs between aggregators as a result of a mobile host crossing a subnet boundary. As part of the system, we discuss a lightweight application-level protocol that enables mobile hosts to select the aggregator that provides the ‘best’ configuration of a channel. The protocol comes into play when a mobile host begins to receive a channel and when it crosses a subnet boundary while receiving the channel. We show how our protocol can be implemented using the standard IETF session control and description protocols SIP and SDP. The implementation combines SIP and SDP’s offer-answer model in a novel way.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Telematica Instituut, P.O. Box 589, 7500 AN Enschede, The Netherlands

    Cristian Hesselman

  2. Telematica Instituut, P.O. Box 589, 7500 AN Enschede, The Netherlands

    Henk Eertink

  3. Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands

    Cristian Hesselman, Ing Widya & Erik Huizer

Authors
  1. Cristian Hesselman
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  2. Henk Eertink
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  3. Ing Widya
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  4. Erik Huizer
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Correspondence to Cristian Hesselman.

Additional information

Cristian Hesselman is a research assistant at the Telematica Instituut and a Ph.D student at the University of Twente, both in the Netherlands. His research is on the distribution of live multimedia streams (e.g., for radio or TV broadcasts) to mobile devices that move around in a wireless Internet. He focuses on application-level support (e.g., signaling protocols) for unrestricted roaming in managed environments. Cristian was with Lucent Technologies from 1996 until 1998. He holds an M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Twente, the Netherlands (1996).

dr.ir. E.H. (Henk) Eertink is a senior member of scientific staff at Telematica Instituut, and leader of the ‘infrastructures for context awareness’ (INCA) group at Telematica Instituut. He holds a PhD from Twente University (1994) on protocol engineering and validation. At Telematica Instituut he has actively worked on software tools for process analysis, distributed system design, multimedia signalling, mobility management, service platform technology and security. His current research interests are mobility management and secure context information exchange. He is a member of several program committees of international conferences.

Ing Widya is Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics & Computer Science at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. He is a member of the Architecture and Services of Network Applications group (ANSA) and his research is embedded in the projects of the Centre for Telematics and Information Technology (CTIT). He received his PhD in Signal Processing and his current research interests cover enterprise modelling of communication supports for networked applications, design and analysis of application-context aware services and protocols operating over large-scale infrastructures like the Internet, including QoS and standardised multimedia format encodings.

Erik Huizer is professor Internet Applications at Twente University. Huizer is also Director Strategy, innovation and Business Development with NOB Cross Media Facilities, responsible for digital broadcasting via DVB, Internet and mobile. Until june 2000 Huizer was managing director of the SURFnet Expertise Center (SURFnet ExpertiseCentrum, SEC). Huizer has been strongly involved with the GigaPort project, the Dutch project for the next generation Internet. Huizer used to work for SURFnet bv on projects that dealt with developing and introducing new services. He also initiated and participated in several EU projects, like the DESIRE 4th framework project. From december 1991 till april 1995 he was Area Director for the Applications area of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and as such a member of the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). From 1995–1999 he was a member of the Internet Architecture Board. From 1999 till 2002 he was chairman of the Internet Research task Force (IRTF). Currently Erik Huizer is serving as a Trustee on the board of Trustees of the Internet Society (ISOC).

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Hesselman, C., Eertink, H., Widya, I. et al. Delivering Live Multimedia Streams to Mobile Hosts in a Wireless Internet with Multiple Content Aggregators. Mobile Netw Appl 10, 327–339 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-005-6426-0

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