Video streaming over wireless networks

A scheme that exploits the broadcast nature of the wireless communication in order to achieve multicast content delivery is presented in this paper. As opposed to broadcasting, this method enables the clients to determine on-line the delivered content, and thus preserves the advantages of an individual service. On the other hand, a multicast content delivery is much more efficient than a unicast content distribution, which must use a dedicated data channel per each and every client. This method is particularly suitable for sessions having a long time duration, for applications in which clients can subscribe to ahead of time, and for applications in which the clients receive the same information simultaneously. Examples for such applications are live video streaming, near video on demand service, gaming applications, and download requests for popular video files. A multicast content distribution increases the network service throughput in terms of the expected number of clients served simultaneously. Consequently, at highly loaded time periods it offers a reduced waiting time for content delivery.