Mobile peer membership management to support multimedia streaming

A CHUM (Cooperating ad Hoc networking to sUpport Messaging) network is an ad hoc network in which mobile devices cooperate to reduce connection costs when accessing wireless global networks. We study how members of a CHUM network cooperate in order to download multimedia data, such as on-air TV programs. Each peer in a CHUM takes turns serving as a proxy, which makes an Internet connection and downloads multimedia data for the other members. Then, the proxy distributes the data to other peers using its ad hoc connection, which we call chumcast. The proxy maintains and updates peer membership information and determines the next CHUM proxy. The CHUM network includes a recovery procedure when a proxy fails or when a CHUM network partitions.