Page "Streaming media" Paragraph 53

* IP Multicast provides a means to send a single media stream to a group of recipients on a computer network.

A multicast protocol, usually Internet Group Management Protocol, is used to manage delivery of multicast streams to the groups of recipients on a LAN.

One of the challenges in deploying IP multicast is that routers and firewalls between LANs must allow the passage of packets destined to multicast groups.

If the organization that is serving the content has control over the network between server and recipients ( i. e., educational, government, and corporate intranets ), then routing protocols such as Protocol Independent Multicast can be used to deliver stream content to multiple Local Area Network segments.