The penetration of broadband residential access and high-speed wireless access has dramatically increased the demand for multimedia content. As the broadband access rate increases, multimedia streaming applications are embedded in more and more hardware devices, e.g., TVs, cars, and cell phones. In the past decade, multimedia streaming has evolved from simple client-server applications to large-scale Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications. Hundreds of sites, including CNN, MSN, and Yahoo, have joined the parade of multimedia streaming. Furthermore, sites like YouTube also provide the Video-on-Demand services that allow users to view the video clips from any playback point. In addition to video and audio streaming, the advances in multimedia streaming also stimulate the emerging Internet telephone and television services. 

Cite: Mohammed Ghanbari, Hideki Tode, Mea Wang, and Bin Wei, "Special Issue on Multimedia Streaming," Journal of Communications, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 177-179, 2012. Doi: 10.4304/jcm.7.3.177-179