An Ultimate Encoding Layer for Real-Time Packetized Voice Streaming and Experiments Over a Multi-Hop Wireless Network

Future integrated networks are expected to offer packetized voice and other multimedia conferencing services to mobile users over wireless links. Wireless networks cannot easily support multimedia applications due to the media high probability, burstiness, persistence of errors, and delay jitter suffered by packets. This is not only due to queuing but due to link-layer (MAC) protocols as well. Mobility results in even higher loss rates and jitter for the higher layers. Adding real-time, reliability and multicast constrains to ad-hoc, multihop or cellular configurations makes the problem even more difficult. Providing for good end user perception in such environments cannot be done by applying traditional methods such as scheduling and reservations as in wired fixed networks.