Well, it *is* getting a little bit technical... Daniel,
maybe there's scope for a 'techie' list?
But... isn't the problem with multicast two-fold?
First one is technical -- all intervening routers need to be multicast enabled,
and if the operator doesn't control the end-to-end network then that might
be [is] difficult to co-ordinate. Second is financial -- if the operator
is paid by connectivity required [megabits/second per month], or gigabytes
transferred, what is their incentive to reduce the amount of traffic. After
all, we're hearing there is a glut of fibre and so sending 1000 identical
streams of 300 k each is a good way of being paid to fill it... isn't it?
Well, no it's not.
a] because it is so manifestly inefficient and unreliable
that content owners are looking for something better to ensure reliable
service they can charge for
b] operators themselves have to pay for, or lay, their
own dark fibre to be filled with these identical streams so that reduces
their margins
I believe that some of the more imaginative operators
are implementing multicast and mcast peering but I suspect it will be a
long while before it gets really close to the 'last mile' router.
But I don't understand Nick's comment about "making
content multicastable" -- surely the actual content is irrelevant as long
as it is a stream [like a TV channel] rather than VoD?
Does any content owner/broadcaster have a live multicast
operation in use 24*7? I would be very interested in making contact.