The Metaverse from a Multimedia Communications Perspective

eXtended reality (XR) technologies such as virtual reality and 360deg stereoscopic streaming enable the concept of the Metaverse, an immersive virtual space for collaboration and interaction. To ensure high fidelity display of immersive media, the bandwidth, latency and network traffic patterns will need to be considered to ensure a user's Quality of Experience (QoE). In this article, examples and calculations are explored to demonstrate the requirements of the abovementioned parameters. Additionally, future methods such as network-awareness using reinforcement learning (RL) and XR content awareness using spatial or temporal difference in the frames could be explored from a multimedia communications perspective.