Multicast
Multicast technology allows a single data stream to be efficiently replicated in the network and delivered to multiple recipients simultaneously. It has become a cornerstone for video distribution services such as Triple Play and Video on Demand, reaching millions of households worldwide. Beyond entertainment, multicast is widely adopted in financial trading environments, where real-time data delivery is critical, and in areas such as multi-player gaming, collaborative applications, and even complex military simulations.
While multicast offers clear efficiency and scalability benefits, it also introduces challenges that are not present in traditional unicast communication. Network design, protocol implementation, performance, and interoperability must be carefully validated with methodologies tailored specifically to multicast environments.
Multicast Testing Services
EANTC provides comprehensive, independent testing that ensures multicast networks and services are reliable, scalable, and standards-compliant. Our portfolio includes:
Router testing: Packet replication, IGMP behavior, PIM neighbor and group scalability, IGMP snooping, RP failover, and aggregate multicast throughput (RFC 3918).
End-user experience validation: Join and leave latency, stream integrity, and quality of service under realistic conditions.
Network solution design: Adapting multicast for specific architectures, including multicast support in L3VPNs (2547bis) and VPLS.
Conformance testing: Validation of IPv4 and IPv6 multicast-enabled devices against industry standards.
Performance Benchmarking
EANTC applies standardized and industry-accepted methodologies, such as RFC 3918 “Methodology for IP Multicast Benchmarking,” to deliver objective and reproducible performance results.
Distributed and accumulated throughput to determine network efficiency under different traffic patterns
Latency under varying loads to validate service quality and end-user experience
Mixed class and aggregated group throughput to measure the impact of heterogeneous traffic scenarios
Scaled group capacity to assess the limits of multicast deployments
Join and leave delay under dynamic conditions to verify responsiveness and stability in highly dynamic environments
With decades of experience in independent network validation, EANTC ensures that multicast deployments deliver the performance, reliability, and scalability that modern applications demand. Our testing helps service providers, enterprises, and vendors reduce risks, optimize designs, and confidently deliver multicast-enabled services.