Mobile Multimedia Multicasting in Future Wireless Systems : A Hybrid Cellular-Broadcasting System Approach

This dissertation addresses the problem of providing a®ordable mobile mul-timedia services in wide area wireless networks. The approach is to con-sider novel system architectures, based on reusing and sharing of the ex-isting network infrastructure for cellular and terrestrial TV broadcastingsystems. The focus has been on the radio resource management techniques,and the evaluation of the potential cost savings, compared to traditionalevolution tracks of the cellular and broadcasting systems.The studies show that deployment cost of a wide area broadcastingnetwork, using DVB-H technology, is very large if high data rate and fullarea coverage is targeted. For this reason we propose to avoid the broad-casting infrastructure dimensioning for full area coverage, and use insteadthe cellular systems to enable error correction for broadcasting transmis-sions. For the special case of mobile users, the chosen approach is to tradesystem's cost and capacity for improved perceived coverage. This trade-o®is enabled by the use of application layer forward error correction, usingRaptor coding.The general purpose Ambient Networks technology was chosen to en-able a platform for inter-operability between cellular and broadcasting sys-tems, especially the necessary interfaces. Under the Ambient Networksframework, we investigate the achievable cost savings o®ered by a hybridcellular-broadcasting system when combinations of broadcast and point-to-point transmissions are jointly utilized to provide ¯le transfers and stream-ing services. Two cases were investigated: one where the cellular systemacts as a replacement and deliver the data in the areas where broadcastingtransmissions cannot reach, and another one where cellular system carriesparity data to users that experience temporary outage in the broadcastingsystem. The results are encouraging, as they show that ¯le transfer costcan be reduced by more than 50%, but only under certain conditions.On a short term, hybrid cellular-broadcasting systems based on 3G andDVB-H, o®er a good platform for testing new and innovative mobile TVservices, enriched with interactivity and content personalization. From atechnical perspective, the outcomes of the presented studies indicate thatfuture systems built on hybrid cellular-broadcasting infrastructures are ableprovide a long term and cost e±cient solution for delivery of a®ordablebroadband multimedia services to mobile users. However, today's cellularand broadcasting systems live in di®erent worlds, are driven by di®erentrevenue models, and they are now starting to compete, instead of cooperate,for controlling the multimedia delivery channels to mobile users.QC 2010070