All things related to multicast

[Marshall Eubanks <>]

On May 8, 2008, at 8:20 PM, George Bray wrote:

> I'm interested to know if anyone has seen figures on how many  
> potential viewers there are connected to I2 multicast-enabled  
> networks.
>
> That is, what is the estimated number of people able to view a  
> broadcast on wired PCs and via shared facilities like residential  
> sites and common rooms.

I did that back about 5-6 years ago, and came up with numbers in the  
low millions in the US. At that time,
I had a list of every I2 school with multicast and what they allowed.

According to the US Census, 2 million people live in college  
dormitories. However, that does not count
off-campus residences, which may or may not have the campus network  
provided, but sometimes does. And, not all schools provide multicast  
to the residence networks even if they provide it on their main network.

And, of course, there are also people in campus offices, labs, etc.  
So, as a rough guess, say 1 to 2 million have access to multicast at  
some point during their day in the I2. Of course, the prevalence of  
non-multicast 802.11x makes things in some ways worse than back in 2003.

Abroad, things are not as good, as I found that in Europe it was not  
common for Universities to provide Internet access to students in  
their dormitories, as that was viewed as something that they have to  
pay for from local providers if they want it. I do not know if that  
has changed, or not. Clearly there is office access.

So, overall, I think that my estimate in the low millions is still  
valid.

Regards
Marshall


> thanks - George
>
> --
> George Bray, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.