METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MANAGING MULTICAST TRANSMISSION COSTS

摘要

A method of probing a network to obtain information about the unitary costs of a new session in a multicast network, said method comprising: transmitting a probe query message containing information about said new session from a downstream device towards an upstream device located in the direction of the source of the session to obtain unitary costs for said session; receiving said probe query message by said upstream device, if said upstream device is already receiving traffic for said session, updating the local information of the session with the address of the downstream device, and estimating the initial unitary costs of the new session; returning a probe answer message back to the source of the probe query message to return information about the initial unitary costs of the session for the source of the probe query message.