A Mechanism for Constructing the Minimum Cost Multicast Routing Tree

In view of the free content distribution in multicast on Internet, a mechanism for constructing the minimum cost multicast routing tree is proposed based on the theory of economic mechanism design. The minimum cost multicast tree can minimize the total transmission cost of the tree, minimize the links connecting the specified multicast group members and save the data transmitting cost and network resources. The model of multicast networks is provided and a routing model based on minimum cost multicast tree is formulate. According to the existing multicast protocols, the design of an algorithm for implementing the routing mechanism is described. The mechanism is evaluated by means of a numerical example. Some prospects on the application of mechanism design theory in multicast research fields are presented.