Reliable multicast transport and integrated erasure-based forward error correction

Multicast networking is an important emerging technology area for both commercial and military group-based data dissemination. In addition, a number of emerging applications can benefit from a reliable multicast transport service. A variety of approaches have been developed regarding the general application of automatic repeat request (ARQ) techniques over Internet protocol (IP) multicasting to achieve reliable delivery. In this paper, we investigate the application of erasure-based processing and parity-based recovery to a reliable multicast protocol framework. The integrated design approach described is shown to have improved efficiency and scalability features over reliable multicasting techniques based solely on ARQ. These bandwidth utilization improvements are expected to be substantial when applied across future multipoint communication infrastructures, especially over bandwidth-constrained and/or asymmetric networks.