  Multimedia applications, mainly video streaming services, are currently the
dominant source of network load worldwide. In recent Video-on-Demand (VoD) and
live video streaming services, traditional streaming delivery techniques have
been replaced by adaptive solutions based on the HTTP protocol. Current trends
toward high-resolution (e.g., 8K) and/or low-latency VoD and live video
streaming pose new challenges to end-to-end (E2E) bandwidth demand and have
stringent delay requirements. To do this, video providers typically rely on
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to ensure that they provide scalable video
streaming services. To support future streaming scenarios involving millions of
users, it is necessary to increase the CDNs' efficiency. It is widely agreed
that these requirements may be satisfied by adopting emerging networking
techniques to present Network-Assisted Video Streaming (NAVS) methods.
Motivated by this, this thesis goes one step beyond traditional pure
client-based HAS algorithms by incorporating (an) in-network component(s) with
a broader view of the network to present completely transparent NAVS solutions
for HAS clients.
