Multicast technology has been around for 30 years. Strangely enough, the technique is not widely used in the public internet space because it is not supported by all service providers end-to-end.
For the past two days, multicast enthusiasts came together in Geneva at the EBU Multicast Workshop. Their objective: to discuss how multicast can address technical and business challenges such as the increasing demand for internet video, why the technology is important for broadcasters and how it can be implemented.
Day 1 began with an overview of the history of multicast. Participants discussed why the technique was developed, how it has been used over the years and what the reality for multicast services is today.
In the past, implementers faced a number of challenges when using multicast. Most have been solved thanks to Source Specific Multicast (SSM), but that hasn't driven wide spread adoption of this technology.
The upcoming standard Automatic Multicast Tunneling (AMT) allows service providers to bridge the end-to-end multicast gap by providing a solution to deliver multicast traffic across a non-multicast enabled network. It addresses delivery from the core service provider network across the last mile into the user’s home. Once in place, AMT enables the service provider to ensure a smooth roll-out of the multicast based services.
On Day 2, participants had the opportunity to get a deep dive hands-on detailed explanation on how to implement an AMT client into their own applications. Included were examples using Open Sourced AMT client software and prototype implementations.
The EBU Technology and Innovation team, with Members and external partners, are developing an AMT Multicast testbed with practical information and real-life use cases. The testbed will be made available via EBU.IO/multicast.