All things related to multicast

["Richard Mavrogeanes" <>]

I continue to think that widespread multicast will occur when it solves an 
obvious, current problem and not a future "if you build it they will come" 
problem. Most ISP's don't yet suffer from the problem multicast can solve, 
and local IT staff simply don't see the issue. You know, "when you are a 
hammer, the whole world looks like a nail" and they engineer unicast 
solutions (or filters!) to control popular traffic.
 
You can do virtually everthing multicast can do via conventional 
unicast...but you can't get unicast to scale the way you can with 
multicast...but you don't need multicast scale until it is obvious that you 
need it (unfortunately).
 
I think the unicast rollover described in the attached has value and that it 
can address the issue of dependable service to drive the bandwidth 
consumption that multicast can ultimately solve.  I can see the ISP and/or IT 
staff saying "we've got to do something about all these idential packets 
going to 1,000 users", and I wonder if rollover with multicast bias is at 
least "an" answer.
 
Please don't flame me...I don't offer this as an advertisement but for the 
opinion and thoughts of this august body :)  Rollover thas been around for 
awhile but I don't recall seeing a discussion here...
 
rich

Attachment: WM_Multicast_Rollover.pdf
Description: WM_Multicast_Rollover.pdf