Prioritized Video Streaming in Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless multimedia home servers are the next generation of home entertainment systems. From a single broadband connection entering home, the multimedia data is transmitted to TV and other peripherals by using only wireless links. Due to the high attenuation and multi-path fading environment caused by the walls as well as the contention of the channel by other users, the provision of service guarantees to time-critical services such as video streaming is extremely challenging. In our project, we use wireless mesh networks to combat with attenuation, and provide high end-to-end throughput to all users. We also use Enhanced Distributed Channel Access to combat with the channel contention for users with time critical services, e.g., video streaming. We use the latest video encoding standard H.264, which classifies the video packets according to their importance. In our prioritization technique, we use this classification in order to give a fair share of the channel to the ongoing data traffic, while providing a high quality video to the end users.