RE: Multicast Traffic on Backbones

[Michael Whisenant <mwhisen () foreigner whisenant net>]

        Most multicast backbone providers have links that show that they mBGP
with peers and offer MSDP as well. This allows for the customer on one
providers network to access a source on another providers network. Of course
there are issues with the 5 bit overlap in multicast address space, but it does
work. There are commercial companies that have registered/reserved particular
addresses for their applications as well. While I think that today the amount
of multicast traffic is low, it will continue to increase.

On Sat, 9 Jun 2001, Deepak Jain wrote:

> When multicast enabling a network, am I wrong in assuming that the routers
> will only multicast to their direct, end-user connections and peers (like an
> access router will only offer streams to its direct connections)? I am
> trying to figure out what advantages multicast-enabling a backbone has when
> the majority of customers are not multicast-peers of their upstream routers.