Proactive, reactive and hybrid multicast routing protocols for Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Networks comes under the category of mobile ad-hoc networks with fixed positions of nodes to communicate to the internet through a single gateway or more than one gate way. In order to provide a multi point communication within the mesh network, a multicast routing protocol is required. Multicast routing is a key technology for modern communication networks. Multicast Routing becomes a prominent technology for wireless communication networks various multicast routing protocols are developed for internet and ad-hoc communications This paper gives the overview of some of the existing proactive, reactive and hybrid multicast routing protocols over WMNs with its strengths and weaknesses. The following multicast routing protocols are selected for their performance comparison; they are On Demand Multicast Routing Protocol(ODMRP), Multicast Ad hoc On Demand distance Vector (MAODV) Protocol, Multicast Open Shortest Path First (MOSPF), Ad hoc Multicasting Routing Protocol(AM Route) and Optimized Polymorphic Hybrid Multicast Routing Protocol(OPHMR). Among them, MOSPF and AM Route is a proactive routing protocol and OPHRM is a Hybrid routing protocol while MAODV and ODMRP are reactive multicast routing protocols.