Challenges and opportunities in supporting video streaming over infrastructure wireless mesh networks

Multi-hop wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are emerging as a promising technology with applications in last mile Internet access, public safety, disaster response, battlefield, etc. The unique characteristics of WMNs such as limited and dynamic bandwidth, error prone nature, interferences, and user mobility, however, pose a number of significant challenges for high quality video streaming. In this paper, we discuss the major challenges, review some general approaches, and present a Unified Cache and Peer-to-Peer (UNICAP) framework we developed recently to support high quality streaming over WMNs. Issues addressed in UNICAP include the architecture, cache server/peer/route selection with cross-layer optimization, and admission control. Some future research directions are also discussed.