A medium-access control layer for in-home wireless multimedia distribution

As both home networks and high quality digital multimedia grow in popularity, there is a need to design these networks to provide the appropriate level of quality of service. In the past, wired and wireless networks were designed primarily for data traffic expecting best effort service. This level of service is insufficient for time sensitive traffic such as multimedia; therefore, state of the art networks of suitable size for a home lack the facilities to stream multimedia.; This thesis first presents an overview of a popular home networking technology, IEEE 802.11 as well as the proposed quality of service amendment as it applies to streaming multimedia. A new protocol, MediaMac, is then introduced as a candidate for providing superior quality of service to a wireless home network. An analytical comparison is made between MediaMac and 802.11. Finally, a simulation study is conducted in which DVD quality video is delivered over 802.11 and MediaMac wireless networks. It is shown through analytic comparisons and simulation how MediaMac is more appropriate for high quality streaming multimedia by providing a higher quality of service than existing solutions.