Mobility Weakens the Distinction Between Multicast and Unicast

Comparing with the unicast technology, multiple flows from the same source in multicast scenario can be aggregated even if their destinations are different. This paper evaluates such distinction by the multicast gain on per-node capacity and delay, which are defined as the per-node capacity and delay ratios between multi-unicast and multicast ( m destinations for each multicast session). Particularly, the restricted mobility model is proposed, which is a representative mobility model characterizing a class of mobility models with different average moving speeds. The theoretical analysis of this model indicates that the mobility significantly decreases the multicast gain on per-node capacity and delay, though the per-node capacity of both unicast and multicast can be enhanced by mobility. This finding suggests that mobility weakens the distinction between multicast and unicast. Finally, a general framework of multicast study is constituted by analyzing the upper-bound ( Θ(m)), the lower-bound ( Θ(1)) and the main determinants of the multicast gain on both per-node capacity and delay regardless of mobility model.