Adaptation of Multimedia Flows in a Seamless Mobility Context Using Overlay Networks

The streaming of multimedia flows becomes an arduous task in a complex network environment where terminals may be connected to the Internet using different access networks, such as Ethernet, ADSL, GPRS, UMTS or WiMax. Indeed, the change of networks potentially entails large repercussions on the service delivery, which has a severe impact on the user-perceived quality of service of the video streaming. We propose a framework with a service provider closely working with the mobility manager in order to react to mobility events. According to the runtime service execution environment, the service manager constructs an adequate overlay network, for example by adding a proxy which can later be controlled to match the network capacities. An application scenario with Scalable Video Coding multimedia flows in a mobile context is also described.