Mass events = duplicated delivery
For major sports and global broadcasts, everyone watches the same bits — but delivery repeats per user.
The problem
Unicast streaming scales cost linearly with viewers — exactly when demand peaks.
Capacity & cost spikes
Origin, CDN and backbone provisioning ramps up for a few peak hours — inefficient and expensive.
Viewer desynchronization
Unicast variability creates wide delay spread, harming social viewing and second-screen use cases.
The solution
Multicast efficiency, upgraded with QUIC-era security and reliability patterns.
One-to-many transport
Send once. Let the network replicate packets efficiently to many receivers.
Secure metadata channel
Deliver verification metadata over unicast (encrypted/authenticated), validate multicast payloads client-side.
Graceful fallback
If multicast isn’t available, clients fall back to unicast without breaking playback.
Bandwidth & cost savings
Open standards
Secure verification
Hybrid multicast + unicast
Mass-scale synchronization
How it works
A practical hybrid architecture: multicast payload + unicast control/verification.
Components
- Server-side QUIC extension (integrates with existing QUIC stacks)
- Client support (apps and/or browser integration) to join multicast & validate packets
The goal is deployment practicality: multicast where available, unicast everywhere else.
High-level flow
Publisher
→
Multicast network
→
Viewers
Unicast verification
→
Validate + fallback
Unicast delivers authentication/verification metadata; clients validate multicast packets and switch to unicast if needed.
Development status
Research exists — commercialization needs hardening, tooling, and client integrations.
Current state
QUIC multicast extensions exist today but are not yet production-ready at commercial scale.
What’s needed
Robust client implementations (apps/browsers), operational tooling, and real-world ISP/operator pilots.
Next steps
Pilot deployments focused on measurable bandwidth savings and synchronization improvements.
Who it’s for
Operators/ISPs and broadcasters benefit first — with licensing and services as initial revenue paths.
Operators & ISPs
Lower peak traffic, reduce backbone stress, and improve QoE for large-scale live events.
Broadcasters
Scale streaming audiences without linear cost growth; reduce delay spread and improve sync.
Platforms & CDNs
Hybrid delivery strategies: multicast where possible, unicast elsewhere.
Contact
Interested in a pilot, integration, or technical deep-dive?