(Archived)

The evolutions veried in mobile devices capabilities (storage capacity, screen
resolution, processor, etc.) over the last years led to a signicant change
in mobile user behavior, with the consumption and creation of multimedia
content becoming more common, in particular video trac. Consequently,
mobile operator networks, despite being the target of architectural evolutions
and improvements over several parameters (such as capacity, transmission
and reception performance, amongst others), also increasingly become more
frequently challenged by performance aspects associated to the nature of
video trac, whether by the demanding requirements associated to that
service, or by its volume increase in such networks.
This Thesis proposes modications to the mobile architecture towards a more
ecient video broadcasting, dening and developing mechanisms applicable
to the network, or to the mobile terminal. Particularly, heterogeneous
networks multicast IP mobility supported scenarios are focused, emphasizing
their application over dierent access technologies. The suggested changes
are applicable to mobile or static user scenarios, whether it performs the role
of receiver or source of the video trac. Similarly, the dened mechanisms
propose solutions targeting operators with dierent video broadcasting goals,
or whose networks have dierent characteristics. The pursued methodology
combined an experimental evaluation executed over physical testbeds,
with the mathematical evaluation using network simulation, allowing the
verication of its impact on the optimization of video reception in mobile
terminals.