| 摘要 |
<p>An apparatus and method is provided for forwarding multicast packets (Fig. 2A) in a communication network using a physically scoped routing protocol. Each of a plurality of access routers maintains information concerning the addresses of physically neighboring access routers. Multicast packets received by each access router are evaluated to determine whether they should be routed using a conventional administratively scoped routing rule or using a physically scoped routing rule. Administratively scoped packets are routed to the multicast address using conventional administrative scoping rules. Physically scoped packets are 'tunneled' by encapsulating them in a unicast packet, which is then transmitted to one or more physically neighboring access routers. An optional time-to-live parameter allows multiple levels of neighboring proximity to be specified.</p> |
