IP multicast
IP multicast is a technique for one-to-many communication over an IP network. The destination nodes send Internet Group Management Protocol "join" and "leave" messages, for example in the case of IPTV when the user changes from one TV channel to another. IP multicast scales to a larger receiver population by not requiring prior knowledge of who or how many receivers there are. Multicast uses network infrastructure efficiently by requiring the source to send a packet only once, even if it needs to be delivered to a large number of receivers. The nodes in the network take care of replicating the packet to reach multiple receivers only when necessary.