Next-generation Internet providers face high expectations, as contemporary users worldwide expect high-quality multimedia functionality in a landscape of ever-expanding network applications. This volume explores the critical research issue of turning today's greatly enhanced hardware capacity to good use in designing a scalable multicast protocol for supporting large-scale multimedia services. Linking new hardware to improved performance in the Internet's next incarnation is a research hot-spot in the computer communications field.

The methodical presentation deals with the key...