>>As has been pointed out, this is a little more complicated than just >>the choice of client, in particular multicast is not widely available >>to the "average" Internet user. >> >>But I still find it ironic that I can watch a webcast from an ICANN >>meeting but I am unable to do the same for an IETF meeting (until after >>the fact). That is but one example. Pretty standard response every time this comes up: 0. Arguing the merits of multicast is really a separate issue, but some facts: (1) the MBone is long dead, (2) multicast is a highly successive (revenue generating) service in a suprising number of enterprises, (3) multicast is certainly NOT ubiquitous in the wide-area infrastructure, but people really ought to understand its deployment by looking at measured statistics, and (4) before bashing "the MBone", make sure you understand the huge challenge that was undertaken (compare to moving the entire Internet to IPv6) and understand that there are a lot of non-technical challenges that were not properly envisioned. 1. As Joel pointed out, the single reason for using multicast is scalability. We simply don't have enough bandwidth to support X (where X > 5-10) simultaneous streams of the same content from the hotel. A very fine idea is to have an exploder or some sort of server available off-site. We send one stream to them and it replicates. Volunteers? 2. The whole multicast effort is run on a shoe-string budget. Until now, and maybe even still now, there seems very little willingness by remote users to pay for even a hypothetically perfpect service. What everyone needs to realize is that of what is currently done, almost zero $$$ of IETF registration money goes to pay for it. As Harald mentioned, it is time donated by UofO (and others), it is a grant from Cisco, and it is money from ISOC. 3. Just some back of the envelope numbers: you want every session encoded (even single camera) and available by unicast, I would estimate this to cost about $15K per meeting plus equipment (assuming someone is willing to do replicated service for free). Given a replacement time for the equipment of three years (reasonable, especially since a lot of the equipment doesn't travel well) and an esimated cost of about $50K, that means, per meeting we are talking about $20K. $100 per remote attendee = 200 attendees $500 per remote attendee = 40 attendees A bit tough to support but possibly doable. --------------------- And if you are STILL reading... as Harald sent in an email, we are approaching the end of the grant period, so lots of opportunity for recommendations. -Kevin