Pricing Models of Inter-Domain Multicasting Applications

experimental Mbone for a number of years. The practical pricing mechanism is the foundation for the deploying of IP multicast in the inter-domain Internet. The IP multicast service model and its pricing mechanism are discussed in this paper. Three models are proposed for all applications in the real environments. They are ICP-USER model, ICP-ISP model and ICP-ISP-USER model. Here, the Internet is considered as an ecosystem, and the entities construct a supply chain with the welfare maximum purpose. Our work gives a general discussion on the practical pricing mechanism for the stability of the economic relationship between ICPs, ISPs and users in the Internet. Key Words—IP multicast, pricing mechanism, Cost-sharing mechanism