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1.5.2 IP Multicast Function
Internet Protocol (IP) multicast is a bandwidth-conserving technology
that reduces traffic by simultaneously delivering a single stream of infor-
mation to thousands of corporate recipients and homes. Applications
that take advantage of multicast include video conference, corporate
communications, distance learning, and distribution of software, stock
quotes, and news.
IP Multicast delivers source traffic to multiple receivers without adding
any additional burden on the source or the receivers while using the least
network bandwidth of any competing technology. Multicast packets are
replicated in the network by the devices supporting multicast protocols
resulting in the most efficient delivery of data to multiple receivers pos-
sible.
Multicast is based on the concept of a group. An arbitrary group of
receivers expresses an interest in receiving a particular data stream. This
group does not have any physical or geographical boundaries - the
hosts can be located anywhere on the Internet. Hosts that are interested
in receiving data flowing to a particular group must join the group using
IGMP. Hosts must be a member of the group to receive the data stream.
IP Multicast address
IP Multicast addresses specify an arbitrary group of IP hosts that have
joined the group and want to receive traffic sent to this group. IP multicast
addresses range from 224.0.0.0 through 239.255.255.255. This address
range is only for the group address or destination address of IP multicast
traffic. The source address for multicast datagrams is always the unicast
source address.