MQ: an integrated mechanism for multimedia multicasting

This paper explores the problems associated with the integration of IP multicast, QoS routing and resource reservation to support multimedia group communications in the presence of user heterogeneity. A protocol called MQ, Multicast with QoS, is proposed to support multimedia multicasting with QoS guarantees. With MQ, while resource reservation is de-coupled from multicast QoS routing, they are integrated in such a way to avoid "sender-oriented" path determination, a problem which occurs when RSVP is used with QoS routing for heterogeneous reservations. Being a truly receiver-oriented and integrated scheme for multimedia multicasting, MQ enjoys lower blocking probability for users to join the groups of interest with the requested QoS, much reduced protocol overheads, and better resource usability to enhance system performance, compared to conventional approaches that employ loosely coupled integration of IP multicasting, resource reservation and QoS routing.