Mbone (short for "
multicast backbone") was an experimental
backbone and
virtual network built on top of the Internet for carrying
IP multicast traffic on the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
. It was developed in the early 1990s and required specialized hardware and software.
[Lewis, Peter H]
"Peering Out a 'Real Time' Window"
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', 8 February 1995. Retrieved 26 August 2009. Since the operators of most Internet
routers have disabled IP multicast due to concerns regarding bandwidth tracking and billing, the Mbone was created to connect multicast-capable networks over the existing Internet infrastructure.
History
Mbone was created by
Van Jacobson,
Steve Deering and Stephen Casner in 1992 based on a suggestion by
Allison Mankin.
During March 16–20, 1992 the first significant use of the MBONE took place from th
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meeting in San Diegowit
On May 23, 1993, ''
Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees'' was streamed over the Mbone, becoming "the first movie to be transmitted on the Internet."
On June 24, 1993, the band
Severe Tire Damage was the first to perform live on the Mbone.
On November 11, 1993
Sky Cries Mary performed on the Mbone from Bellevue, WA sponsored by Starwave.
On August 23, 1994, the band
Deth Specula broadcast the first live concert over the Mbone.
A November 1994
Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular, influential, and enduring bands of the Album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pione ...
concert at the
Cotton Bowl in
Dallas
Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
with 50,000 fans was the "first major cyberspace multicast concert."
Mick Jagger opened the concert by saying, "I wanna say a special welcome to everyone that's, uh, climbed into the Internet tonight and, uh, has got into the M-bone. And I hope it doesn't all collapse."
A year later the Mbone was used, this time symmetrically (simultaneous transmission and reception without hierarchy among participants), for a first experience of real-time graphical interaction without the intermediary of any Center (
Poietic Generator).
By 1995, there were M-bone links in
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
, as well as at the
McMurdo Sound research station in
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...
.
Mbone was predominantly used by research and scientific entities, including NASA.
Mbone was used for shared communication such as
video teleconferences or shared collaborative workspaces. It was not generally connected to commercial
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...
s, but often to universities and research institutions. Some other projects and network testbeds, such as
Internet2's
Abilene Network, made Mbone obsolete.
A "virtual room video conferencing system" (VRVS) started operation in 1997 using the Mbone, and was in operation through 2008.
A revived ''mboned'' (mbone deployment) working group was chartered by the
Internet Engineering Task Force
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet standard, Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster ...
in 2014, as a forum to coordinate and document multicast deployment challenges and best practices.
Details
The purpose of Mbone was to minimize the amount of data required for multipoint audio/video-conferencing.
Mbone was free and it used a network of routers that support IP multicast, and it enables access to real-time interactive multimedia on the Internet. Many older routers do not support
IP multicast. To cope with this,
tunnels must be set up on both ends: multicast packets are encapsulated in unicast packets and sent through a tunnel. Mbone uses a small subset of the
class D IP address space (224.0.0.0–239.255.255.255) assigned for
multicast traffic. Mbone uses 224.2.0.0 for multimedia conferencing.
Characteristics
*
topology
Topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of a Mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformat ...
: a combination of
mesh and
star
A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...
networks
*
IP address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...
es: 224.2.0.0
* routing schemes:
DVMRP,
MOSPF
*
session registration:
IGMP
* traffic requirement: audio 32-64 kbit/s, video 120 kbit/s
Mbone tools
*
Videoconferencing
Videotelephony (also known as videoconferencing or video calling) is the use of audio signal, audio and video for simultaneous two-way communication. Today, videotelephony is widespread. There are many terms to refer to videotelephony. ''Vide ...
: vic -t ttl destination-host/port (supports: NV,
H.261,
CellB,
MPEG
The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by International Organization for Standardization, ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC that sets standards for media coding, includ ...
,
mJPEG)
*
Audioconferencing: vat -t ttl destination-host/port (supports:
LPC,
PCMU,
DVI4,
GSM
The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...
)
*
Whiteboard: wb destination-host/port/ttl
*
Session Directory: sdr
* Collective art : gp (
Poietic Generator)
See also
*
CastGate—an attempt at providing connectivity to the multicast network for hosts which have none
References
External links
*
MBONE: Multicasting Tomorrow's Internet': Classic book about MBONE, by Kevin Savetz, Neil Randall, and Yves Lepage, complete on-line
IETF MBONE Deployment working groupHow to connect to the MBoneAccessGrid.org
��Ajit S. Thyagarajan, Stephen L. Casner, and Stephen E. Deering, Proc. INET '95. Internet Society. May 10, 1995
Historical clients
LBNL's toolsMICE's tools
{{Authority control
Internet architecture