MULTICAST-FAVOURABLE MAX-MIN FAIRNESS - THE DEFINITION AND HOW TO COMPLY

摘要

In scenarios where many receivers simultaneously are interested in the same data, multicast transmission is more bandwidth efficient than unicast. Consequently, the benefit of multicast transmission is growing with the rising interest in video-streaming services. To prioritize multicast flows and thereby create an incentive for the use of multicast transmission might therefore make sense. Research in this area is usually denoted multicast fairness. In this paper, we present a general definition of multicast fairness, named multicast-favourable max-min fairness (MFMF), which specifies the properties a global bandwidth allocation should possess to be considered fair to both unicast and multicast flows. A description of how the definition can be used to evaluate the fairness of other bandwidth allocations is also included. Further, two bandwidth-allocation policies that aim at producing allocations close to fulfilling the MFMF definition are presented.