PARITY-BASED LOSS RECOVERY FOR RELIABLE MULTICAST TRANSMISSION

We investigate how forward error correction (FEC) can be combined with automatic repeat request (ARQ) to achieve scalable reliable multicast transmission. We consider the two scenarios where FEC is introduced a s a transparent layer underneath a reliable multicast layer that uses ARQ, and where FEC and ARQ are both integrated into a single layer tha t uses the retransmission of parity data to recover from the loss of o riginal data packets. To evaluate the performance improvements due to FEC, we consider different loss rates and different types of loss beha viors (spatially or temporally correlated loss, homogeneous or heterog eneous loss) for up to 10(6) receivers, Our results show that introduc ing FEC as a transparent layer below ARQ can improve multicast transmi ssion efficiency and scalability. However, there are substantial addit ional improvements when FEC and ARQ are integrated.