Re: new version of the draft

[Steve Deering <[e-mail]>]

> ... We've had non-real-time multicast applications
> for years, such as LISTSERV on BITNET, and newsgroups.
> They have the property that the multicast spanning tree is built
> at application level (and lives in name space rather than address
> space). They also have the property that (in principle) the same
> traffic need never flow twice over the same link.

I don't think that is true, in principle or in reality, unless your
applications also live in the routers.  The MBONE is effectively
doing "application level" (at least, not hop-by-hop in the real routers)
multicast, and it is been impossible to limit all links to only one
tunnel.

> (Another argument against multicast at IP level is that ATM will
> do it better, but that is futuristic.)

What makes you believe that?  In what ways can ATM do it better?

Steve