Real-time multicast routing with optimal network cost

Multicast routing for real-time applications has two important requirements: minimal network cost and shortest network delay. It is always difficult to meet one requirement without compromising the other. This paper presents a real-time multicast routing algorithm which minimizes overall network cost without letting the delay from source to any destination exceed a time constraint. The multicast routing with optimal overall network cost is an NP-complete problem. Our algorithm is based on the idea of the minimum spanning tree heuristic.