Multicasting / Peer to Peer streaming

[saint]

Bittorrent seems to be the new direction for P2P streaming, but many ISP's are throttling Bittorrent traffic. They are under pressure from various "industry" associations and government agencies to limit the ability of users for this technology.

 

Long before Bittorent there was Multicasting. Multicasting requires specialised routing and protocols in addition to specific network hardware. Most of the Americas ( North / Central and South) have failed to embrace this technology - for what ever reason.

 

There is a viable solution based on readily available software. Most of this software is absolutely free to use as well.

 

Create a VPN (Virtual Private Network).

 

This virtual network acts as a private network that carries date between all computers connected. There are several VPN applications that can facilitate Multicast traffic. (There are some commercial VPN companies that can accommodate Multicast traffic as well.)

 

Broadcasters and audience participants would access the Multicast VPN and receive / broadcast programming.

 

Enable connecting computers to handle Multicast Traffic.

 

To participate in a Multicast network, individual computers would need to emulate routers and implement multicast protocols. This can be facilitated using Mrouted software - available for all operating systems.

 

Sending / Recieving / Advertising streams

 

This can be done using VLC. VLC can stream / receive / advertise and find Multicast broadcasts. VLC is designed for Unicast and Multicast streaming. VLC also supports the SAP protocol. You can configure VLC to advertise streams ( audio / video ) as well as display all SAP stream messages from broadcasters that advertise their content.

 

One key element of Multicast, is it does not carry the stigma associated with Bittorrent, It can easily scale just like Bittorrent and uses well tested and developed software. A Multicast VPN could easily be created using off the shelf software, or a commercial firm could be used to facilitate this.

 

Any comments ?