A bridging-based solution for efficient multicast support in wireless mesh networks

Wireless mesh networking is a promising, cost effective and efficient technology for realizing backhaul networks supporting high quality services. In such networks, multicast data are transmitted blindly without any mechanism protecting data from loss, ensuring data reception, and optimizing channel allocation. The multicast services may undergo, then, very high data loss ratio which is exacerbated with the number of hops. In this paper, we propose a Reliable Multicast Distribution System (RMDS) to optimize multicast packets transmission in bridged networks. Relying on a modification of the IGMP snooping protocol, RMDS enables reliable services provisioning support in common wireless mesh networks. In particular, RMDS only exploits the local knowledge of a particular node to compute the multicast tree, which significantly reduces the signalling overhead in comparison with network layer and overlay solutions. Simulation results elucidate that RMDS optimizes resources´ allocation by reducing significantly the network load, the media access delay and the data drop rate compared to the classical approach, which is based on the combination of spanning tree algorithm and IGMP snooping protocol.