An expressway for the 'Net?

Despite a boost from high-speed cable modems, the Internet still gets a bad rap as more users and high-bandwidth applications clog its switches and routers. A cooperative effort among vendors called the IP Multicast Initiative aims to resolve that problem by promoting IP Multicast technology, an extension of the standard IP protocol that lets bandwidth-intensive applications be deployed over IP

Traditional unicast technology creates a separate point-to-point data stream between the sender and each receiver for each piece of information-an inefficient use of bandwidth, says Martin Hall, chief technology officer of Stardust Technologies, a Silicon Valley company that manages the initiative and provides services to Internet technology developers.

With multicast technology, a single stream of data can be routed to multiple receivers, meaning that less data is traveling over the network.

"Multicast technology means that information can find its way to far greater numbers of people than was previously possible," Hall says.

Developed in 1989, multicast technology routes data over the multicast backbone, or MBONE, which overlays the Internet. Multicast data is encapsulated into unicast format and transmitted between multicast-enabled routers. Once the data reaches the last possible multicast-enabled router that is common to all users who have requested the information, it is unbundled, duplicated and distributed.

The IP initiative's goal, however, is to upgrade the Internet so it can support the end-to-end delivery of native multicast data, says Dan Evans, network engineer for @Home Network, a member of the initiative.

@Home envisions the Internet becoming both a unicast an multicast network.

"We think that multicast is going to be pervasive throughout our network," Evans says. "We wanted to stake a claim in the initiative to assist wherever we could in overcoming the hurdles to making multicast available everywhere.

The initiative, founded in October 1996, has more than 60 member companies, including Bay Networks, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Netscape, Newbridge Networks, Progressive Networks, Silicon Graphics and Sun Microsystems.

Recently, the initiative signed an agreement with the International Webcasting Association to collaborate on a series of educational initiatives, including an industry summit this summer.

Hall believes that multicast will jump-start the commercialization of the Web, as advertisers realize that the technology can allow them to track who is accessing what information, providing them with a direct link to potential customers.

"Multicast will provide a leap in advertisers' ability to target specific audiences relative to a particular product," Hall says. "This will revolutionize advertising by allowing marketing specialists to put together programs that are much more effective than those used today."