Deployment Complexity Versus Performance Efficiency in Mobile Multicast

The Internet has evolved from a wired infrastructure to a hybrid of wired and wireless domains. As network access is now provided with much of the last mile being a mobile environment, delivering rich multimedia to mobile users is now a necessity. However, despite the advent of new technology and standards for broadband wireless, there is still an important dilemma over the choice of systems that either achieve high levels of performance or offer easier deployment. The goal of this paper then is to offer insight into this issue by examining the case of media streaming to mobile users through the use of multicast. By specifically considering the debate over network and application layer multicast, we examine a spectrum of possible alternatives and and propose a solution that could be the key to a desired balance between deployment complexity and network per-