Analysis of a multicast switch via the arrival modulation technique

Multicast switching is emerging as a new switching technology that can provide efficient transport in a broadband network for video and other multipoint communication services. In this paper, the authors analyze the call blocking probability in a multicast switch via the arrival modulation technique. The present study shows that multicast traffic encounters higher blocking probability than point-to-point traffic because of simultaneous output port contentions. To ensure adequate performance for multicast traffic, the authors develop and analyze a simple call scheduling algorithm called Fixed Splitting. The results show that the fixed splitting algorithm reduces the call blocking probability significantly when it is applied with appropriately selected splitting parameters.