Prototype implementation of a connection handover system for video streaming with different delivery methods

With the emergence of multimode terminals and the deployment of multiple access networks, users are expecting ubiquitous and seamless connectivity across heterogeneous networks when using IP-based applications. For bandwidth intensive IP-based application such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), the multimedia contents are usually transmitted via multicast delivery for reason of efficiency. However, not all networks support multicast. Hence, multicast video delivery could lead to service disruption when users move from a network with multicast support to another network that is not. In this paper, we propose a system called Application Layer Switching System (ALSS) that focuses on switching video transmission between multicast and unicast delivery methods. More specifically, we study the overlapping period needed by the mobile terminal to achieve smooth video playback for different videos during connection handover.