Bandwidth Fair Application Layer Multicast for Multi-Party Video Conference Application

In this paper we propose bandwidth fair N-Tree algorithm for ALM distribution tree construction and a new protocol for ALM packet replication and distribution, namely Almcast. Both the tree construction algorithm and packet replication/distribution protocol were implemented as proof-of concept by modifying an existing multi-party video conference application. The results show that N-tree algorithm takes less than 3 ms to construct ALM distribution tree for 12 nodes. Almcast implementation enables the intermediate relay node to lookup for next destination, replicate and forward packets as fast as its receiving rate at application layer.