Recent Advances in Future Mobile Multimedia Networks

The increase in the number of wireless devices and multimedia applications, coupled with the desire to connect them to the ever-growing Internet, is leading to a mobile multimedia Internet, where the support for the mobility of devices will soon be taken for granted. In addition to the global connectivity support, it is also expected that the management of intra and inter-domain handovers (heterogeneous scenarios), in a seamless and multimedia-awareness manner, is a way to increase user satisfaction and profits for mobile multimedia providers. However, heterogeneous wireless network structures, severe channel impairments, unavailable multimedia quality level controllers and complex traffic patterns make mobile scenarios much more unpredictable than wired networks.