Unicast, Multicast, Broadcast. What Does It Mean?
By Stephen Bucaro
Unicast, Multicast, and Broadcast are different network transmission methods.
Unicast is a transmission between a single sender and a single receiver
identified by a unique address over a network.
For video, even though multiple client computers might request the same video
at the same time, a separate unicast data stream is transmitted to each client computer.
Multicast is a transmission between a single sender and multiple receivers
simultaneously. The clients that receive the multicast may have a common set of criteria,
or be specifically set up as a multicast group. A special kind of multicast, referred to as
"anycast" is a communication between any sender and the nearest receivers in a network.
Broadcast is a transmission from a single sender to all clients on the network.
Routers can be used to divide a network into separate broadcast domains. A broadcast is
then limited to a broadcast domain. The IP address 255.255.255.255 indicates a broadcast,
and this address is never forwarded by routers.
More Networking Protocols and Standards:
• The OSI Presentation Layer
• IEEE 802.11.x Wireless Standards
• Unicast, Multicast, Broadcast. What Does It Mean?
• TCP/IP Protocol Suite
• TCP Windowing
• Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) Protocol
• Network Routing Protocols - IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF, ISIS, BGP
• Video - The Upper Layers 5 Through 7 of the OSI Networking Model
• What's the Difference Between a Packet and a Frame?
• IPv6 Address Format
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