Overlay and tiered multicast IP/ASON testbed in Yangtze River Delta region

The emerging new services are driving the evolution of optical network. One of such services is standard- or high-definition television (SDTV and HDTV) video stream. To support such services more efficiently, it is necessary to introduce multicasting capability to the optical network. This paper provides an overview on the multicast testbed of IP over automatic switched optical network (ASON) in 3TNET project. The goal of 3TNET is to develop a new-generation network for scalable SDTV/HDTV and other broadband services. The paper will introduce and discuss the features of optical multicast, multicast extension to generalized multi-protocol label switch (GMPLS) framework, tiered and overlay multicast model of IP/ASON, and multicast applications in three cities of Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou in the Yangtze River Delta region of China.