A ring based multicast service over a high speed deflection network

A simple ring support structure has been used to provide multicast service over a prototype of high speed network that uses deflection routing on mesh topology. By exploiting the behaviour of deflection networks it is possible to ensure, with a simple protocol, a significant performance improvement with respect to n-unicast communications and to obtain results that are close to those achievable with tree based multicasting. Further, the devised multicast protocol has a simple implementation that does not affect the ongoing prototype development. The paper shows that value added services can be provided on top of datagram deflection networks to extend the LAN services to larger geographical areas