Video streaming over cooperative wireless networks

We study the problem of broadcasting video streams over a Wireless Metropolitan Area Network (WMAN) to many mobile devices. We propose a cooperative network in which several elected mobile devices share received video data over a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). The proposed system significantly reduces the energy consumption and the channel switching delay concurrently. We design a distributed leader election algorithm for the cooperative system and analytically show that the proposed system outperforms current systems in terms of energy consumption and channel switching delay. Our experimental results from a real mobile video streaming testbed show that the proposed cooperative system is promising because it achieves high energy saving, significantly reduces channel switching delay and uniformly distributes load on all mobile devices. Furthermore, we complement our empirical evaluation with a trace driven simulator to rigorously show the viability of the proposed cooperative system.