Real-time performance guarantees over wired/wireless LANs

Distributed audio and video applications require end-to-end performance guarantees from the underlying networks for smooth delivery of real-time media streams. The end-to-end nature dictates that real-time support be built into both wide-area and local-area networks. With the enormous growth of portable computers equipped with networking capabilities; it is important to develop real-time protocols for wireless LAN technologies, such that real-time audio/video communication services can be extended to these mobile terminals as well. This paper describes the implementation effort of supporting end-to-end performance guarantees over a heterogeneous local-area network comprising of both wired and wireless LAN segments. This work also addresses the performance guarantee! issues associated with terminal mobility in the wireless segments.