| 摘要 |
An arrangement is described for implementing multicast transmission over bonded broadband. A communication network comprising a plurality of routers having the ability to route multicast streams: a multicast stream splitter 20 receiving a multicast stream and arranged in operation to split said multicast stream into a plurality of multicast sub-streams and to transmit said plurality of multicast streams; said plurality of routers 25 receiving said multicast sub-streams and replicating said sub-streams in dependence upon downstream routers 23a, 23b, 24a, 24b subscribed to said sub-streams; one or more bonding routers 23a, 23b serving a single customer 26, said one or more bonding router serving a plurality of fixed or wireless broadband connections having a respective capacity (or bandwidth/speed etc.), each bonding router subscribing to one or more of said plurality of multicast sub-streams in dependence upon the respective capacity of the plurality of connections; wherein the one or more bonding routers serving a single customer aggregate said plurality of multicast sub-streams to form a single multicast stream for use by said customer. Streams may be split into sub-streams on a round-robin basis, to allocate keyframes to a particular sub-stream or by allocating particular packets to each sub-stream in turn until a respective threshold is reached for that sub-stream. In the event that a bonding router is unable to receive a plurality of multicast streams the bonding router is arranged to receive a unicast version of the plurality of streams to which it is subscribed. |
