Protocol Independent Multicast and Asymmetric Routing

Originally all links in the Internet were assumed to operate bidirectionally. Like many other routing protocols, PIM (protocol independent multicast) is based on this assumption: as will be explained, PIM's concept of using the routers' unicast RIBs (routing information bases) for reverse-path-forwarding is not applicable in networks with uni-directional links. If an additional bidirectional link such as a dial-up connection exists, link-layer tunnelling can overcome these basic routing deficiencies. But in order to achieve a more efficient routing and sustain scalability we argue that multicast and unicast traffic should be distinguished either by an extended link-layer tunnelling or dual RIBs

Reliable multicast transport by satellite: a hybrid satellite/terrestrial solution with erasure codes

Geostationary satellites are an efficient way to provide a large scale multipoint communication service. In the context of reliable multicast communications, a new hybrid satellite/terrestrial approach is proposed. It aims at reducing the overall communication cost using satellite broadcasting only when enough receivers are present, and terrestrial transmissions otherwise. This approach has been statistically evaluated for a particular cost function and seems interesting. Then since the hybrid approach relies on Forward Error Correction, several practical aspects of MDS codes and LDPC codes are investigated in order to select a code

VoIP-based Air Traffic Controller Training

Extending VoIP beyond the Internet telephony, we propose a case study of applying the technology outside of its intended domain, to solve a real-world problem. This work is an attempt to understand an analog hardwired communication system of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and effectively translate it into a generic, standards-based VoIP system that runs on their existing data network. We develop insights into the air traffic training and weigh on the design choices for building a soft real-time data communication system. We also share our real-world deployment and maintenance experiences, as the FAA Academy has been successfully using this VoIP system in five training rooms since 2006 to train the future air traffic controllers of the U.S. and the world

Quality of Service over Specific Link Layers: state of the art report

The Integrated Services concept is proposed as an enhancement to the current Internet architecture, to provide a better Quality of Service (QoS) than that provided by the traditional Best-Effort service. The features of the Integrated Services are explained in this report. To support Integrated Services, certain requirements are posed on the underlying link layer. These requirements are studied by the Integrated Services over Specific Link Layers (ISSLL) IETF working group. The status of this ongoing research is reported in this document. To be more specific, the solutions to provide Integrated Services over ATM, IEEE 802 LAN technologies and low-bitrate links are evaluated in detail. The ISSLL working group has not yet studied the requirements, that are posed on the underlying link layer, when this link layer is wireless. Therefore, this state of the art report is extended with an identification of the requirements that are posed on the underlying wireless link, to provide differentiated Quality of Service

Implementing label filters on a shared tree mobile multicast architecture

This paper describes an architecture that filters packets within a subset of nodes on an existing shared multicast tree. The path connecting the group of nodes that want to communicate privately on the existing tree was given a label. These labels are used to route one-to-one and group communication traffic for selected nodes on a multicast tree. Nodes connected to the tree but are not on this label path do not receive any filtered packets. This filter architecture reduces network resource waste by utilising the existing network resources on the multicast tree like quality of service (QoS). In this paper, we also describe how this architecture can be used for mobile communication when implemented in a shared tree mobile multicast architecture

A Switch Architecture for Real-Time Multimedia Communications

In this paper we present a switch that can be used to transfer multimedia type of trafJic. The switch provides a guaranteed throughput and a bounded latency. We focus on the design of a prototype Switching Element using the new technology opportunities being offered today. The architecture meets the multimedia requirements but still has a low complexity and needs a minimum amount of hardware. A main item of this paper will be the background of the architectural design decisions made. These include the interconnection topology, buffer organization, routing and scheduling. The implementation of the switching fabric with FPGAs, allows us to experiment with switching mode, routing strategy and scheduling policy in a multimedia environment. The witching elements are interconnected in a Kautz topology. Kautz graphs have interesting properties such as: a small diametec the degree is independent of the network size, the network is fault-tolerant and has a simple routing algorithm

Web Conferencing Traffic - An Analysis using DimDim as Example

In this paper, we present an evaluation of the Ethernet traffic for host and attendees of the popular opensource web conferencing system DimDim. While traditional Internet-centric approaches such as the MBONE have been used over the past decades, current trends for web-based conference systems make exclusive use of application-layer multicast. To allow for network dimensioning and QoS provisioning, an understanding of the underlying traffic characteristics is required. We find in our exemplary evaluations that the host of a web conference session produces a large amount of Ethernet traffic, largely due to the required control of the conference session, that is heavily-tailed distributed and exhibits additionally long-range dependence. For different groups of activities within a web conference session, we find distinctive characteristics of the generated traffic

High-Performance Broadcast and Multicast Protocols for Multi-Radio Multi-Channel Wireless Mesh Networks

Recently, wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have attracted much attention. A vast amount of unicast, multicast and broadcast protocols has been developed for WMNs or mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). First of all, broadcast and multicast in wireless networks are fundamentally different from the way in which wired networks function due to the well-known wireless broadcast/multicast advantage. Moreover, most broadcast and multicast protocols in wireless networks assume a single-radio single-channel and single-rate network model, or a generalized physical model, which does not take into account the impact of interference. This dissertation focuses on high-performance broadcast and multicast protocols designed for multi-radio multi-channel (MRMC) WMNs. MRMC increases the capacity of the network from different aspects. Multi-radio allows mesh nodes to simultaneously send and receive through different radios to its neighbors. Multi-channel allows channels to be reused across the network, which expands the available spectrum and reduces the interference. Unlike MANETs, WMNs are assumed to be static or with minimal mobility. Therefore, the main design goal in WMNs is to achieve high throughput rather than to maintain connectivity. The capacity of WMNs is constrained by the interference caused by the neighbor nodes. One direct design objective is to minimize or reduce the interference in broadcast and multicast. This dissertation presents a set of broadcast and multicast protocols and mathematical formulations to achieve the design goal in MRMC WMNs. First, the broadcast problem is addressed with full consideration of both inter-node and intra-node interference to achieve efficient broadcast. The interference-aware broadcast protocol simultaneously achieves full reliability, minimum broadcast or multicast latency, minimum redundant transmissions, and high throughput. With an MRMC WMN model, new link and channel quality metrics are defined and are suitable for the design of broadcast and multicast protocols. Second, the minimum cost broadcast problem (MCBP), or minimum number of transmissions problem, is studied for MRMC WMNs. Minimum cost broadcast potentially allows more effective and efficient schedule algorithms to be designed. The proposed protocol with joint consideration of channel assignment reduces the interference to improve the throughput in the MCBP. Minimum cost broadcast in MRMC WMNs is very different from that in the single radio single channel scenario. The channel assignment in MRMC WMNs is used to assign multiple radios of every node to different channels. It determines the actual network connectivity since adjacent nodes have to be assigned to a common channel. Transmission on different channels makes different groups of neighboring nodes, and leads to different interference. Moreover, the selection of channels by the forward nodes impacts on the number of radios needed for broadcasting. Finally, the interference optimization multicast problem in WMNs with directional antennas is discussed. Directional transmissions can greatly reduce radio interference and increase spatial reuse. The interference with directional transmissions is defined for multicast algorithm design. Multicast routing found by the interference-aware algorithm tends to have fewer channel collisions. The research work presented in this dissertation concludes that (1) new and practical link and channel metrics are required for designing broadcast and multicast in MRMC WMNs; (2) a small number of radios is sufficient to significantly improve throughput of broadcast and multicast in WMNs; (3) the number of channels has more impact on almost all performance metrics, such as the throughput, the number of transmission, and interference, in WMNs