Video broadcasting using overlay multicast

Despite the availability of high bandwidth Internet access for end-users, video broadcasting over the Internet is not widely spread. Multicast communication decreases the network load by eliminating redundancy of the data transfer. However IP multicast was never widely accepted by commercial Internet service providers (ISP). Existing solutions solving this problem, like MBONE tunneling, are not available for end-users accessing the Internet via xDSL or TV cable. Application layer multicast using peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay networks could solve the problem of sparse IP multicast support in the Internet. A limitation of this approach is the lack of standardized interfaces for existing IP multicast applications. We propose a solution, which bridges application layer multicast and IP multicast and uses a P2P (overlay) network to transport multicast data. Our solution - including a "proof-of-concept" prototype - enables video broadcasting over the Internet using existing IP multicast applications without requiring additional service deployment.