Unicast and multicast IP error performance over an ATM satellite link

IP multicast using ATM-based satellites provides the potential to support multimedia applications, including audio/video streaming and information distribution, at a large scale. This article considers the impact of satellite channel errors, and equations are derived for the probability of IP datagram loss in the presence of burst errors on the satellite link. When there are a large number of multicast receivers per spotbeam there is a significant probability that one or more recipients will not receive the data, and this has implications particularly for the design of reliable multicast network protocols.