What are the limitations of multicast?
Multicast has one major limitation. For multicast to work, every router between the recipient and the source must be multicast enabled. Since multicast is a relatively new technology, not all networks are multicast enabled. Sprint was the first ISP to completely enable multicast technology natively across their entire backbone. As the technology is embraced, more router vendors and ISPs will enable multicast. The cost benefits to multicast and the increasing use of high bandwidth multimedia applications on the Internet suggest that multicast will be ubiquitous very soon.
