Supporting Handover between LTE Video Broadcasting and Unicast Streaming

Abstract

The heterogeneity of the network poses new challenges on the paradigm of multimedia content distribution. Nowadays, different access technologies coexist in user terminals, so it is possible to improve the performance or avoid coverage problems by switching from one to another. This process is known as handover. In this work we have focused on vertical handover, which is the process of switching between different access technologies without losing connectivity. If a handover happens during a video streaming session, the session will need to adapt to the different channel conditions. This paper discusses the proposal of a new mechanism at the application level to support a handover between a unicast video streaming session and a video session based on LTE broadcasting.