MPhil Thesis Defence


"Peer-to-Peer Collaborative Streaming among Mobiles for Video
Broadcasting"

By

Mr. Man Fung Leung


Abstract

In traditional mobile streaming networks such as 3G cellular networks, all
users pull streams from a server. Such pull model leads to high streaming
cost and problem in system scalability. In this thesis, we propose and
investigate a fully-distributed, scalable, and cost-effective protocol to
distribute multimedia content to mobiles in a peer-to-peer manner. Our
protocol, termed Collaborative Streaming among Mobiles (COSMOS), makes use
of broadcasting and data sharing to achieve high performance (in terms of
delay, cost fairness, stream continuity, etc.). In COSMOS, only a few
peers pull video descriptions from base stations. Using a free broadcast
channel (such as Wi-Fi and bluetooth), they share the streams to nearby
neighbors. As a result, COSMOS greatly reduces the streaming cost and
cellular bandwidth requirement. Furthermore, as video streams are supplied
by multiple peers, COSMOS is robust to peer failure. Since broadcasting is
used to distribute video data, COSMOS is highly scalable to large number
of users. In COSMOS, peers autonomously determine whether to broadcast
packets or not in order to efficiently use of the channel bandwidth. By
taking turns to pull descriptions, peers can effectively share, and hence
substantially reduce, streaming cost. As broadcast scope is small and
peers can often obtain a number of streams from its neighbors, COSMOS
achieves low delay and excellent stream continuity.


Date:				Thursday, 17 August 2006

Time:				2:00p.m.-4:00p.m.

Venue:				Room 5509
				Lifts 25-26

Committee Members:		Dr. Gary Chan (Supervisor)
				Dr. Qian Zhang (Chairperson)
				Dr. Oscar Au (ECE)


**** ALL are Welcome ****