A reservation-based multicast (RBM) routing protocol for mobile networks: initial route construction phase

We propose a combined multicast routing, resource reservation and admission control protocol, termed Reservation-Based Multicast (RBM), that borrows the “Rendezvous Point” or “Core” concept from multicast routing algorithms proposed for the Internet, but which is intended for operation in mobile networks and routes hierarchically-encoded data streams based on user-specified fidelity requirements, real-time delivery thresholds and prevailing network bandwidth constraints. The protocol exhibits the fully distributed operation and receiver-initiated orientation of these proposed algorithms; but, unlike them, the protocol is tightly coupled to a class of underlying, distributed, unicast routing protocols thereby facilitating operation in a dynamic topology. This paper focuses on the initial route construction phase, assumed to occur during a static “snapshot” of the dynamic topology, and is therefore applicable to fixed networks as well, e.g. the Internet.