Network convergence: theory, architectures, and applications

With ever increasing demand for highly correlated video services in wireless networks, network information sources often carry vast redundancy in information contents, as exemplified by popular multimedia contents requested online by a large number of mobile users. The consequence is the waste of two precious resources - spectrum and energy. A good strategy is network convergence whereby commonly requested contents are transmitted via broadcast channels while personal contents are unicast by cellular networks. This article studies crucial issues arising from network convergence including its information-theoretic foundation, architectures, and feasible schemes for various application scenarios.