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DSL Providers that Support Multicast & MBone?
kaosmunkee asks: "I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to use the MBone (Multicast Backbone) several years ago when it was just getting underway. I've recently become interested in experimenting with IP multicast and the MBone again, but my DSL provider doesn't provide IP multicast services. Pacbell doesn't either. Does anyone know of a national DSL provider that supports IP multicast?"
Yes it would be cheaper in terms of bandwidth, but at the moment a lot of the equipment in use at the customer premise, or at the other end of the DSL circuit doesn't support multicast, so it wouldn't work anyway.
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While the isp's certainly do see a benefit once they multicast enable (I used to run a Sat Network that transfered 20-30mbit/sec of multicast traffic). We made pretty good inroads into the cable isp's and smaller dsl providers. The big guys had too much money tied up in equipment that wouldn't support multicast, or it wouldn't scale well on their network. They (management of said companies) didn't want to hear anything about multicast. It didn't play into their model.
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Having worked for and help start a company that did multicasting. There is not a lot of support for multicasting on the big DSL companies. Part of the reason is the way their infrastructure is built. Basically they run a pipe, (T1/DS3/etc...) out to a pop. Then they build atm pvc's (at real low bandwidth) to each one of their customers, all the way back to their noc. So their is no benefit to multicast enable their equipment. A couple of the bigger cable ISP's are either multicast enabled now, or will be very shortly once the DOCSIS 1.1 stuff roles out onto their networks. If you are stuck on a non-multicast network and would like to play, take a look at livegate from http://www.live.com. It should be useful in getting you connected. You may get lucky with a smaller dsl provider, but most of the time, there aren't that many people that know how or care to enable multicast, and also not all of the Backbone providers support it.
Hope this Helps,
Patrick
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There is one problem with multicast. It's very unreliable. A lot of IOS versions have bugs with it.
I'm a developer who has an app that uses Multicast. We have to fight to get the routers configured correctly all the time. I doubt you'll see most routers out there setup correctly
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I think this is a very important question, thanks to Slashdot for finally posting it. Users should demand multicast connectivity. A multicast enabled internet would dramatically lower the cost of delivering multimedia content, thus making a wider variety of content available. Currently, delivering multimedia to large numbers of users is quite expensive, preventing many from having access to large audiences.
MSN used to offer multicast connectivity, I'm not sure when they stopped. Anyone know the story on this?
A few things consumers can do:
-if you are shopping for an ISP of any kind ask about multicast and try to get the question to get as high up the chain as possible.
-Sprint offers free multicast connectivity to its ISP customers, if yours peers with them let them know this. (does Sprint offer multicast connectivity to its consumer grade customers?)
-check to see if you've got multicast connectivity through this applet from multicasttech. If you are let other people know about your ISP, on forums like dslreports
This sounds like their network supports it but not their phone drones.
A while back I went to a mutlicast conference. One of the small group meetings there was all about gathering a bunch of ISP guys in a room and having them hash out the problems of delivering multicasting content across peering points. Today, smaller ISPs get charged by bigger backbone providers for peering with them. Charges can be usually by the bit. The arguments centered around things like: "If AT&T multicasts a 20Kbps stream, it'll cross the the EarthlinkAT&T peering point as a single 20Kbps data stream, but then it'll EXPLODE inside Earthlink's networks and all Earthlink's users will get to see the AT&T multicast content while Earthlink only pays AT&T for the single 20KBps. AT&T will be cheated!"
remember dsl is "the consumer internet" it is designed forpeople who are non-technical, the most advanced thing they know how to do is look at porn. maybe with a buisness dsl you might be able to get mcast support, but for buisiness dsl is is 2x the price.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
You don't necessarily need your direct upstream provider to do multicast natively. If you can find a provider willing to provide you a tunnel then you just need an appropriate piece of hardware/software to become your end of the tunnel. Linux and FreeBSD boxes work great for this, along with most "real" cisco routers.
Start with your upstream and ask them two things. 1) If they will provide you with a tunnel and 2) If not, who are their providers so you can get a tunnel from one of them. Generally, the multicast people are fairly open to providing tunnels to people who are even indirectly connected to them, although YMMV.
Look around a bit with some Google searches and you should be able to find someone who will give you a tunnel.
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Hmm.
Perhaps before trolling yourself you might do the same search. I have been looking for this information online; unfortunately, not many people use or even know about Multicast so most Internet providers don't advertise it and most of the "technical support" people don't know what it is. When I called up DSL.net to ask if they supported Multicast, they thought I was asking for more IP addresses(!). It took over 4 hours to find out that they don't support it or plan to support it in the near future.
Thanks for playing, please try again.
-kaosmunkee