“Cisco Systems Inc. and FVC.COM are moving aggressively to
jump-start the packet video market with offerings of high-bandwidth
Internet Protocol (IP) applications and services that might
encourage millions of end users to stay tuned to their PCs for the
next full-motion video transmission.”
“It’s not as though multicasting has no fan base already.
Developers of client operating systems such as Microsoft Corp.,
Apple Computer Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. have regularly
followed the development track for Internet Group Membership
Protocol (IGMP) versions 1 and 2, which form the heart of multicast
capabilities. But certain carriers and end users have demanded
version 3 of IGMP, even while it is still in early draft form.
Version 3 offers source filtering that improves client
performance.”
“In the latter half of the year, Cisco quietly added Reliable
Multicast features by offering Pragmatic General Multicast (PGM)
protocols at Layer 4, as an alternative to the unacknowledged User
Datagram Protocol service. … Cisco enhanced its ties to the
Windows, Apple and Unix/Linux communities to ensure that
client-side IGMPv3 features would be offered in new operating
system releases in 2000.”