Mobile reliable multicast support in IP networks

We propose a reliable mobile multicast protocol, RRBMoM (Reliable Range Based Mobile Multicast), in IP networks using mobile IP. RRBMoM is an extension of RBRMoM. It provides ACK-based reliability and sender-initialed loss recovery, and uses a tree-based hierarchical structure to alleviate the acknowledgment-implosion problem. A multicast home agent (MHA) acts as a representative of a set of mobile receivers which are roaming within its service range. Only the MHAs send acknowledgments to the sender, instead of all receivers sending their acknowledgments to the sender to prevent acknowledgment-implosion. In addition, the scheme of handoff loss recovery leads to improved throughput and end-to-end delay at the cost of additional backup nodes in the multicast tree. This cost can be dynamically controlled by adjusting a system parameter (i.e., service range). Performance results show that RRBMoM is efficient and adaptive to the dynamics of the system