In video streaming applications especially during live streaming events (such as the Super Bowl), video traffic can account for a significant portion of network traffic and can lead to severe network congestion. During such events, multicast transmission can be used to avoid network congestion since the same video content is being streamed to multiple users simultaneously. However, providing seamless connectivity to cellular users in multicast streaming remains an open problem. To address this issue, this paper explores the potential of using multi-connectivity (MC) in wireless multicast streaming. Our results reveal that MC significantly improves the performance of multicast services, especially for cell edge users who often suffer from poor channel conditions. We prove that optimal resource allocation in MC multicast streaming is an NP-hard problem. Therefore, we propose a greedy approximation algorithm for this problem with an approximation factor of $(1-1/e)$. We also prove that no other polynomial-time algorithm can provide a better approximation.

翻译：在视频流应用场景中，特别是在直播事件（如超级碗）期间，视频流量可能占据网络流量的显著比例，并导致严重的网络拥塞。在此类事件中，由于相同视频内容需要同时传输给多个用户，可采用组播传输来避免网络拥塞。然而，在组播流传输中为蜂窝用户提供无缝连接仍是一个未解决的问题。为解决该问题，本文探索了在无线组播流传输中采用多连接技术的潜力。研究结果表明，多连接技术显著提升了组播服务的性能，尤其对于信道条件较差的边缘用户。我们证明多连接组播流传输中的最优资源分配是一个NP难问题。为此，我们提出了一种贪婪近似算法，其近似比为$(1-1/e)$。同时，我们证明了不存在其他多项式时间算法能够提供更优的近似比。