This report is a survey of network requirements of current data streams, as well as speculation on the possible network requirements of future data streams. Section 2 presents the network criteria for the support of multimedia applications. 2 Critical network criteria for the support of multimedia applications Audio and Video are the two major multimedia information. These data stream applications have many properties in common with other applications. Volumes of data to be exchanged are substantial and sometimes considerable, due to the encoding of continuous media information.
Many applications are distribution oriented, in particular when serving residential users.
Audio and video data resemble a stream-like behavior, and they demand, even in a compressed mode, high data throughput. In a workstation or network, several of those streams may exist concurrently demanding a high throughput. This parameter is an important one for synchronous applications. 2.3 Delay variation Network delay variance refers to the variation over time of the network transit delay. It is sometimes measured as the difference between the delay experienced and some target delay for the data flow.