Streaming refers to the ability of an application to play synchronised media streams like audio and video streams in a continuous way while those streams are being transmitted to the client over a data network. Applications, which can be built on top of streaming services, can be classified into on-demand and live information delivery applications. Examples of the first category are music and news-on-demand applications. Live delivery of radio and television programs are examples of the second category. Streaming over fixed-IP networks is already a major application today. While IETF and W3C have developed a set of protocols used in fixed-IP streaming services, no complete standardised streaming framework has yet been defined. For 3G systems, the 3G packet-switched streaming service (PSS) fills the gap between 3G MMS, e.g. downloading, and conversational services. PSS enables mobile streaming applications, where the protocol and terminal complexity is lower than for conversational services, which in contrast to a streaming terminal require media input devices, media encoders and more complex protocols. The present document describes the transparent 3G packet-switched streaming services (3G PSS) on a general application level.

The present document contains a general description of a transparent packet-switched streaming service in 3GPP-defined networks. In particular, it defines the usage scenarios, overall high-level end-to-end service concept, and lists terminal related functional components. It also lists any identified service interworking requirements.

The following documents contain provisions which, through reference in this text, constitute provisions of the present document.

• References are either specific (identified by date of publication, edition number, version number, etc.) or non-specific.
• For a specific reference, subsequent revisions do not apply.
• For a non-specific reference, the latest version applies. In the case of a reference to a 3GPP document (including a GSM document), a non-specific reference implicitly refers to the latest version of that document in the same Release as the present document.
  The present document may contain references to pre-Release-4 GSM specifications. These references shall be taken to refer to the Release 5 or 6 versions where that version exists. Conversion from the pre-Release 4 number to the Release 4 (onwards) number is given in clause 6.1 of 3GPP TR 41.001 [2].

For the purposes of the present document, the abbreviations given in TR 21.905 and the following apply: DANE DASH DRM GIF HTML MMS MPD P-GW PCRF PER PKI PSS RTSP SAND SMIL XHTML