Patent ID: 8392593

Claim:
A device comprising: logic, implemented at least partially in hardware, to receive requests, for a multicast media stream, from a plurality of client devices; logic, implemented at least partially in hardware, to transmit a first message, using a first protocol and based on the received requests, to an upstream device and over a first channel, the first message indicating that the multicast media stream is being requested by the plurality of client devices; logic, implemented at least partially in hardware, to transmit second messages, using a second protocol and based on the received requests, to the upstream device and over a second channel, each of the second messages being transmitted for a respective client device of the plurality of client devices, and each of the second messages identifying a respective one of the plurality of client devices as requesting the multicast media stream, the second protocol being different than the first protocol, and the second protocol including a Layer 2 Control (L2C) protocol (L2CP) and the second messages including first L2C messages; logic, implemented at least partially in hardware, to receive, from the upstream device, the multicast media stream based on the transmitted first message; logic, implemented at least partially in hardware, to receive, from the upstream device, third messages based on the transmitted second messages, the third messages including second L2C messages, each of the received third messages identifying a corresponding one of the plurality of client devices, the second L2C messages including one or more first responses acknowledging, first ones of the transmitted second messages, and one or more second responses, different than the one or more first responses, negatively acknowledging second ones of the transmitted second messages, and the second ones of the transmitted second messages being different than the first ones of the transmitted second messages; and logic, implemented at least partially in hardware, to, based on the received one or more first responses, replicate the received multicast media stream and forward the replicated multicast media stream to one or more first client devices, of the plurality of client devices, associated with the first ones of the transmitted second messages, based on the received one or more second responses, the received multicast media stream being not replicated and not forwarded to one or more second client devices, of the plurality of client devices, associated with the second ones of the transmitted second messages, the one or more second client devices being different than the one or more first client devices.