Patent ID: 7979516

Claim:
An apparatus configured for providing multimedia access from a mobile wireless device configured for communicating over a wireless network subject to communication outages, comprising: a wireless transceiver configured for establishing streaming wireless data connectivity with said wireless network; a data repository configured for storing multimedia data retrieved from the wireless network; programming stored in memory configured for: automatically playing back a first stream of multimedia data received through said wireless network in response to user activity; automatically monitoring the first stream against an available bandwidth; automatically communicating with the wireless network to receive a second separate stream of multimedia data when not playing the first stream or when the first stream is played at a data rate less than the available bandwidth, without direct user interaction, for storage in said data repository for playback when a communication outage arises between said apparatus and said wireless network; periodically collecting content in said data repository; detecting said communication outage; alerting a user of said apparatus to said communication outage and either providing options to the user with regard to playing back content stored in said data repository from at least said second separate stream or playing back the periodically collected content in response to detecting said communication outage and based on a length of said communication outage; and playing back the second separate stream multimedia data stored in said data repository in response to said communication outage.