Multimedia multicast routing

Abstract

This paper proposes an algorithm for constructing a multicast route for high bandwidth, delay-sensitive applications in a wide area point-to-point network. Each edge of the network is associated with a cost, delay and capacity. The receivers of the multicast may have different individual requirements in a heterogeneous environment. Hence it is advantageous to take into consideration the bandwidth requirements of individual receivers while constructing the multicast tree. High capacity edges should be selected while multicasting so that the network does not get partitioned into disjoint subgraphs and can satisfy future requirements for additional bandwidth. Known algorithms for multicast tree construction do not exploit the heterogeneous bandwidth requirements while constructing the multicast tree. The proposed algorithm modifies edge costs considering the requirements of the destinations, in a heterogeneous environment. It also selects high capacity edges while multicasting. Simulation studies of the algorithm on three standard networks show that there is a considerable saving in bandwidth being consumed.