An overview of network-aware applications for mobile multimedia delivery

Network-aware applications are a promising new concept in which applications are aware of network conditions and thus can adapt to the varying environment to achieve acceptable and predictable performance. This paper reviews the current research on network-aware applications, with a focus on their appliance on mobile multimedia applications. First, different frameworks or architectures of network-aware applications are introduced. Research issues and activities are then discussed in detail from two basic aspects of network-aware applications: network awareness and network adaptation. After the discussion about network-aware applications in general network environments, special problems and requirements of mobile multimedia applications are summarized, and different network-aware application approaches for mobile multimedia delivery are compared with respect to these requirements. Finally, we provide some suggestions to network-aware mobile multimedia application developers and identify current challenges in this area.