Split-domain video transmission protocol for video streaming over hybrid wired–wireless connections Rick Ha, Weihua Zhuang * Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ont., Canada N2L 3G1 Received 29 February 2004; accepted 25 November 2004 Available online 9 April 2005 Abstract The imminent inception of third-generation mobile communication technologies and con- tinual proliferation of wireless local area networks offer an unprecedented opportunity for the development of video streaming applications through wireless Internet access. Different design challenges exist in implementing video streaming connections spanning both wired and wire- less domains. This paper proposes a split-domain video transmission protocol to allow stream- ing video transmission based on adaptive rate encoding over hybrid wired–wireless connections. Computer simulation results are presented to demonstrate the benefits and via- bility of such a video streaming method over existing transport options. Ó 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Mobile communication systems; Multimedia applications; Transport protocols; TCP; Video streaming 1. Introduction The advent and proliferation of the Internet in the last decade have tremen- dously facilitated the spread of information amongst individuals throughout the www.elsevier.com/locate/jvci J. Vis. Commun. Image R. 16 (2005) 450–474 1047-3203/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jvcir.2004.11.011 * Corresponding author. Fax: +1 519 746 3077. E-mail addresses: rwkha@bbcr.uwaterloo.ca (R. Ha), wzhuang@bbcr.uwaterloo.ca (W. Zhuang).