The article does not mention that DOCSIS 3.0 supports IPv6 which means that the Set-Top boxes can get their Video vis IPv6 Multicast and thus conserve the usage of Channels (you do not need to reserve a dedicated channel for each Cable Channel and if there is no-one viewing a Channel on a node, there is a lower number of channels delivering Video - Just like switched video works now).
it also doesnt mention (in fact no story has yet) that generic Multicast is a mandated requirement to the CPE in all DS3 kit to pass its cert even basic "bronze" with its mear 4 channels download bonding.
its about time too, seeing as Multicast is as old as the Unicast used everywere today, but the worlds ISPs have seen fit to turn it off to the end users in all the industrial grade routers and related kit as they cant simply find a way to make money from it.
a very limited tunnel vision POV on the part of the ISPs seeing as it's also removed any of the incentive for Developers to retrofit multicasting into all the high bandwidth using unicast traffic today and thats a shame, bring back the old MBONE days and finally give them the ability to use non tunneled multicast to at least the other internal ISP consumers and interconected peers to swap their content and develop new bandwidth savings
There is a major difference between IPv4 and IPv6 Multicast. With IPv4 MC, there is a separate session between the user and the MC Server (even when there are more than one user on the node). Thus there is no advantage to MC. With IPv6 MC only ONE Session is flowing on to the Node and all the User's Modems/Set-Top-Boxes are monitoring that Session.
