WIRELESS/MOBILE VIDEO DELIVERY ARCHITECTURE By LATHA SAMPATH A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2000 To my family iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I express my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Sumi Helal, for giving me the opportunity to work on this challenging topic and for providing continuous guidance and feedback during the course of this work and thesis writing. Without his encouragement this thesis would not have been possible. Dr. Frank for agreeing to attend my defense on my last minute request. I thank Sharon Grant for making the Database Center a truly great place to work, and Matt Belcher for providing me with all the computing facilities I needed. I give special thanks to my friend Yan Huang, who assisted me in the initial stages of this project. I especially thank my friend Sangeetha Shekar, for all her support, encouragement and help during my work. I thank my friends Subha, Harini, Vidyamani, Amit and Prashant for their support; and for making my stay at the University of Florida a memorable one. I thank my parents and my sister and brother-in-law for their constant emotional support and encouragement throughout my academic career.