Stability of ALM Tree with selfish receivers: A simulation study

Application Layer Multicast (ALM) is an effective supplement to IP Multicast. However, unlike the multicast tree in IP Multicast which is constructed on routers, the multicast tree in ALM is composed of host receivers. As selfish entities which have their own interests, the host receivers may cheat about their private information. Receiver cheating may transform the multicast tree, and lead to its instability. We establish the cheating model of selfish ALM receivers, and study the stability of ALM tree with selfish receivers through simulations. Simulation results show that receiver cheating has considerably negative effects on the stability of ALM tree. This discovery brings forward a new issue in ALM study, that is, we should take receiver cheating into consideration to maintain a stable ALM tree when designing ALM protocols.