Alcatel Lucent

Mark Fine

Jeremy Lynn Garff

Jeffrey Glenn Thomas

Robert Leon Sangroniz

Kelly Marinan

A router and method are described herein that provide a 'fast leave behavior' by instantly aging out group and source records that are associated with the IGMPv3/MLDv2 protocols. In one embodiment, the router and method are part of a triple play service network including a bandwidth-limited Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) network in which the instantly aging out of group and source records is desirable to implement a fast TV channel changing feature (or fast leave behavior).

Fast TV channel changing in IPTV network

An enhanced DVMRP method for regulating multicast traffic in a destination-based forwarding router is disclosed. As a plurality of neighbor multicast routers are detected and route reports exchanged, the enhanced DVMRP router transmits one or more restricted route reports, each of the restricted route reports omitting the routes associated with one or more of its branch interfaces. With the exception of the neighbor router detected on a given interface, a route report omits reference to other branch interfaces to prevent branch-to-branch routing of multicast streams that may cause a destination-based forwarding router in a multi-access network to transmit duplicate packets to a group member. The enhanced DVMRP method also employs flash updates indicating that some branch interfaces are inaccessible in order to prevent multicast routing through newly-detected neighbor multicast routers.

Enhanced DVMRP for destination-based forwarding of multicast data

A method and apparatus for optimizing multicast traffic in a VLAN-tagged environment is disclosed. The method, implemented by a cross-VLAN switching device, comprises the steps of receiving a multicast stream within a first VLAN of a plurality of VLANs configured thereon, and internally distributing the multicast stream towards substantially all the multicast group members registered at the cross-VLAN switching device to receive the multicast stream. Distribution of the multicast stream preferably comprises the steps of internally routing the multicast stream from the first VLAN to each VLAN in which there is a multicast group member registered to receive the multicast stream and then switching the multicast stream from each VLAN in which it is present in a cross-VLAN switching device to substantially all of the multicast group members registered to receive the multicast stream. In accordance with the invention, only a single copy of a multicast stream propagates across said one or more VLAN-tagged communications links, thereby avoiding one or more duplicative multicast streams that generally occur when there are multicast group members in a plurality of VLANs.

Growing community of inventors

Salt Lake City, UT, United States of America

Mark Fine