Patent attributes
A multicast transmission scheme is introduced. A multicast data stream is sent on a default tunnel and switched to a data tunnel during flooding conditions. The default tunnel is a point-to-multipoint tunnel from, for example, a source provider edge router to all other provider edge routers in a virtual private network. The data tunnel is a point-to-multipoint tunnel from, for example, a source provider edge router to other provider edge routers that have recipients. Flooding conditions can occur when sending the multicast data stream on the default tunnel, for example, when a specified bandwidth threshold has been exceeded on a source provider edge router. Additionally, the data tunnel is created by selecting a multicast distribution tunnel group from a configured pool of addresses, advertising the group, receiving data joins from, for example, provider edge routers with recipients, and waiting a specified send time.
