Multicast and unicast video streaming with rateless channel-coding over wireless broadband

Prior research on wireless multicast video streaming has addressed the risk of feedback implosion when providing adaptive forward error correction (FEC). This approach has not been adopted by providers, who may either stick to unicast streaming or use a sufficient level of application layer FEC to avoid the need for adaptation. Instead in this paper, an adaptive unicast rateless channel coding scheme is also run in multicast mode. This is accomplished simply by turning off requests for FEC repair data. The paper demonstrates the concept and provides an indication of the operating conditions for such a joint multicast/unicast service in terms of data rates and suitable video content type.