All things related to multicast

[Bob Gerdes <>]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2009, Peter Gutierrez wrote:

> Alan Crosswell wrote:
> > Mike,
> >
> > It's next to impossible to get people to change their habits.  They go
> > to the CNN web site.  When that doesn't work, they go to the NYTimes or
> > other web sites to get the streams.  We did internally share our VLC
> > instructions among about 300 IT staff.  Still, many of them later told
> > me they went to the CNN site.  We did use multicast for several
> > congregation areas where we had large screen projection set up.
>
> After having done (multi|uni)cast video for a long time, I think the
> feed looked great. To see all those little flags waving back and forth
> without boxy pixellations was amazing.
>
> I want to thank Northwestern University and its staff for providing this
> service to the Internet2 community.

Beginning in the Summer, we started a Video Furnace based pilot IPTV 
service which relays CSPAN and CSPAN2 from Northwestern along with OSTN 
and Research Channel as well as some local channels within the same 
viewer. On Inauguration Day, our audience did a lot of channel surfing. 
Whatever our bumps, IPTV is coming of age thanks to Internet2, 
Northwestern, and many others.

All of the hype regarding the millions of viewers should be recast as what 
it could be if things were different. A couple of years ago, Educause 
presented a proposal for expanding broadband to all communities. 
Certainly, a federal initiative to expand broadband is now being 
discussed. And for major events, only multicast offers a true solution for 
the killer app on data networks. Until then, the current stakeholders (in 
the status quo) will write about how larger audiences are watching rather 
than the Internet is melting under the load. Years ago, Michael Wellings 
showed off HD multicasts on big screens and video on cell phones. Now, 
some of the broadcasting stations are now talking about providing signals 
to handheld devices which will push cell phone manufacturers to support 
that technology as consumers expect it. Once multicast appears on 
Internet1, things will change on that front. To avoid playing catch up, we 
need to engage.