Communications requirements of multimedia applications: a preliminary study

A preliminary study is presented that provides a framework to explore the communications requirements of wireless applications in general, with emphasis on multimedia applications. An estimate of bandwidth requirements for various basic common applications are given, from which network bandwidth requirements in different scenario can be evaluated. The delay and error characteristics for certain multimedia applications are described, along with possible implications about the suitability of contention-based and reservation-based MAC protocols. The author provides a basis for further investigating the networking requirements as well as the criteria for designing MAC protocols to support multimedia applications in the wireless environment