I've long argued against multicast -- it's based on the assumption that we are broadcasting in the same way the phone network reveled in circuits.
If you need to fan out then you can do it at the edge with relays like Akamai. What you don't want to do is pollute the network with a complex application protocol like multicast. I can understand it's use local as a variation on ARP as long as you don't assume reliable delivery. But if you are delivering content than you need reliable delivery and it gets extremely complex. This is very similar to the phone companies reveling in MPLS because they know deep in their lower bowels that the Internet is just like a telephone network. Or maybe it's a railroad (http://www.frankston.com/?name=VONRailroads). In fact it's just like having railroad guys run an airline because they think they are in the transportation business when they are really in the rolling stock business. But this is far worse - there is no business in transportation - just a business in laying down copper, glass and radios and getting out of the way as users do their own networking (http://www.frankston.com/?name=OurCFR, http://www.frankston.com/?name=SATNFSM) What could be stupider than putting those most incapable of understanding the concept of user's doing their own networking in the position of gatekeeper for our very ability to communicate and conduct business and look after our own safety. The OSI stack is just a vocabulary - it isn't really but the ITU is so besotted with protocolism that they give fictions like spectrum allocation all the weight of a ton of lead. Who else would think bandwidth was a useful measure - what's the bandwidth of my copper at home. That's a stupid question - the answer is whatever I can achieve and that's now a gigabit at $10/port when they can't get their costs below $1000! You can't make a profit for selling transport any more than you can make money operating a canal across the ocean and the carriers know this which is why I like to point to their own message in http://www.frankston.com/?name=AssuringScarcity. The solution is not to fix the network nor V6 (http://www.frankston.com/?name=IPGeni2 and http://www.frankston.com/?name=InternetDynamic). It is to give us the ability to do our own networking rather than having to pay for a ride from the today's robber barons. But it's 1934 and nothing can change because legislation doesn't respond to reality - only to the meanest of intelligent designers. 'nuf said - in the land of the blind the one-eyed many is considered insane. The blind rule. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 15:48 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [ NNSquad ] The Once and Future King: Multicast looks to (finally) be the future of television. this article from cringley may explain some isps behavior: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20071221_003697.html snip See, multicast IS a resource hog. But to more and more ISPs multicast is looking like the best answer to a huge bandwidth problem, while also being a sneaky way to take back control of the Internet. The first problem ISPs are facing is that they are running out of IP addresses. Many, including Comcast (my ISP), are already reusing IP addresses on subnets and are rapidly moving toward IPv6. The second problem these ISPs are facing is they are running out of bandwidth at layers 1 and 2 of the OSI protocol stack. We're not talking so much about Internet bandwidth here but Intranet bandwidth -- bandwidth within the ISP's own cable plant -- and this loss they blame primarily on P2P file-sharing services. In order to lower their bandwidth bills, ISPs are trying to take greater control of the way we, their customers, use our "unlimited" bandwidth. So Verizon and a lot of other DSL and wireless data providers are placing download caps on their monthly service while Comcast has been traffic shaping to limit the growth of P2P file-sharing services like BitTorrent. This is all intended less to slap us around and more to keep ISP costs in line so they can -- big secret coming -- CONTINUE TO MAKE NEARLY ALL THEIR PROFIT FROM PROVIDING INTERNET SERVICE. You think your phone company makes a lot of profit on voice and long distance or that your cable company makes a lot on carrying video channels? Think again. Comcast barely breaks even on video and makes a killing on Internet and VoIP. If cable company Internet subscriptions fall, those companies are in real trouble. Why, then, would they risk alienating us, their customers? Because they think we are stupid, for one. And because they intend to offer us alternatives, like IP Multicast. Both Comcast and Verizon are rapidly rolling out IP multicast, as I am sure most big cable and telephone ISPs are. Even Verizon's fiber-to-the-home service, FiOS, is moving to multicast because it was architected in a dumb way that sorely limits what should be a lot of throughput. snip
