Quality-Oriented Mobility Management for Multimedia Content Delivery to Mobile Users

Abstract

The latest advances in wireless data access technologies and increased popularity of mobile computing have enabled the development of the future mobile Internet. The various wireless technologies and standards already developed or under development support the existence of a highly heterogeneous wireless communication environment in which mobile users access the network from diverse devices and exchange data of various types. In the context of such a heterogeneous wireless and mobile environment, maintaining certain level of Quality of Service required by some applications and consequently providing high user Quality of Experience is very challenging. This chapter analyzes the state of the art in quality-oriented mobility management in heterogeneous wireless environments in the context of mobile multimedia applications. Most important wireless access technologies and multimedia support systems and protocols for wireless delivery are presented, while requirements for quality-oriented mobility management are identified. Handover management is discussed as the component of the mobility management system with the greatest impact on the quality as measured by the user. Finally a novel multimedia mobility management framework is presented which aims at maintaining high user perceived quality while efficiently exploiting all the communication resources available in a heterogeneous wireless environment.