The network convergence of wired, wireless, and mobile systems creates a ubiquitous network environment where modern networking devices feature multiple networking interfaces and can connect to different networks simultaneously. Mobile users in ubiquitous networks expect to access information services anytime, and from anywhere. This paper presents a mobile content sharing scenario in which a networked device can discover neighboring devices and share multimedia content in a convenient, networked manner. This ideal scenario differs from the traditional usage which requires the tedious manual operations of connection setup and file transfer. To achieve this goal, this study proposes a user-provided multimedia content distribution architecture for a mobile and ubiquitous network environment. The proposed architecture integrates several specific mechanisms, including device discovery, asynchronous content delivery, secure access control, and virtual file system. This design addresses several inherent limitations in wireless and mobile networks, and enables mobile users to transfer media content in a secure, mobile, and energy-saving way. The proof-of-concept prototype and performance evaluation in this study confirm that the proposed architecture not only provides better user experience, but also achieves a lightweight design without compromising performance. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
