On Sat, 9 Jun 2001, Tim Winders wrote:
AT&T has most/all of their backbone natively multicast enabled and will multicast enable customer access routers upon request. They do have a setup fee, but no monthly recurring fees.
Fundamentally is that not the way that it should be? I think that if I were an AT&T customer I am paying for the ability to flow bits at whatever speed my link or service contract was permitted. It should not depend if those bits are multicast bits or unicast bits. Then in my selection of a provider the provider that offered me more features for the same dollar would have a larger value and ultimately win my decision process.
UUnet has two levels of multicast capabilities. Their "Basic" package is receive only and is free. Their "Gold" package is full send/receive, but they charge a ton for it. The basic package seems pretty useless to me. To join a multicast group, you have to be able to send to it, right?
If you are wanting to receive multicast traffic of a live event for example, no you would not have to send to the multicast group. Your client would send an IGMP join request to the (*,Group) and then ultimately receive (host, Group) of data. Your clients and routes only need to know that there is a host registered to receive the data, then they will not PRUNE the flow.
I have found that most sales reps don't know what multicast is, or why it is important to have. It also takes a few phone calls to get the right people to explain how their backbone is setup. If most customers would ask about and request multicast capabilites, we would probably see more carriers toutintg their multicast capabilities which would, in turn, generate more customer demand.
Sales represenatives are only taught to sale what is the sales managers hot topic and makes the commision levels that they want. It is unfortunate that VERY few companies actually have a sales force that understands the community and all the features that they have to offer.