Blocking probabilities of multi-layer multicast streams

Abstract

We present two new algorithms for calculating call blocking probabilities for multi-layer multicast streams with the assumption that blocked calls are lost. Users may join and leave the multicast connections freely, thus creating dynamic multicast trees. We define the state space, and give two recursive algorithms; for the general case and for the special case where all multicast channels are statistically indistinguishable. Our recursive algorithms are linear with respect to the number of links. The special case is also polynomial with respect to the number of channels.