MOBILITY SUPPORT IN IP MULTICAST: PROPOSALS REVIEW AND EVALUATION

Abstract

Multicast is one-to-many or many-to-many delivery of packets. Multicast data delivery increases network efficiency and decreases the bandwidth demand by eliminating the need for redundant packets when more than one client wishes to access a data stream. With this in mind, the importance of multicast routing becomes evident. However, the main drawback of the current multicast routing protocols is that they are developed without mobility in mind. It is anticipated that many users are likely to become mobile in the near future, thus mechanisms are needed to support multicast for the groups whose members are both mobile and static. The main aim of this paper is to study and evaluate the current approaches for mobility support in multicast. It presents the main concepts of multicast. It also performs a study and evaluation to the Internet Engineering Force Task (IEFT) approaches to handle the mobility of the multicast users. Then the discussion is extended to include different protocols that are introduced to overcome the limitations of IEFT proposals highlighting their advantages and limitations.