Jim Henderson wrote:
> Not really, a party line is many-to-many, but multicast is one-to-many.  

If someone in a multicast domain sends a multicast packet, it'll go to 
everyone on the LAN and downstream from there.

But the real answer is that IP multicast doesn't describe how to route the 
packet other than point to point. IP multicast is between routers. The 
mechanism for getting from the last router to the individual host clients 
isn't specified and depends on the underlying technology. If the underlying 
network between client machines on the subnet doesn't do true broadcasting, 
you're going to wind up repeating the packet on the subnets too.

So it's not really a valid comparison.  IP broadcast only works when the 
underlying network supports it, so it's still point to point.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

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