On Global Multicast Networks Using Satellite Unidirectional Links

Abstract

IP Multicast network deployment is still lagging far behind the Internet. Meanwhile, satellite links have been considered as the links that can deliver multicast traffic efficiently because of their broadcast nature. This paper analyzes the deployment of global multicast networks using satellite unidirectional links assuming that the Internet's backbone networks become the UDL feeds, and regional and stub networks become the receivers. The main objective is to understand how and how much satellite unidirectional links benefit the deployment of global multicast networks. We simulate deployment scenarios on several instances of the Internet topology taken from the RouteViews BGP routing table snapshots, where each scenario consists of UDL feeds and receivers placement strategies. The performance of each deployment scenario is measured using the multicast link count, cumulative multicast out-degree, and the expected number of downstreams per UDL receiver. Our simulations demonstrate that such a deployment gives an advantage over deployment using the existing links on the Internet.