Multicast routing and interoperability between wired and wireless ad hoc network

Multicast routing is employed whenever data needs to be delivered from a single source to a group of receivers, in this way, the source can transmit a single flow of data packets which are subsequently delivered to a group of receiver nodes. As a result, multicast routing protocols are extensively used in computer networks, as these techniques allow applications to be able to save bandwidth and reduce the traffic load in the network. In relation to multicast protocols, most of them have been designed for use in wired networks, such as the Internet; similarly, some multicast protocols have been proposed for wireless environments, like wireless ad hoc networks, however they usually deal with the transmission of multicast traffic within the wireless network and do not address those issues related to the interoperability between wired and wireless networks. Nowadays, wireless mobile devices have a large demand of multiple services from the Internet, thus resulting in a need to extend some of the readily available services to wireless network while providing the same level of performance and reliability. This work presents an approach to integrate a wireless ad hoc network with a wired network, while supporting the interoperability of multicast services between the wired network and the wireless ad hoc network. As a result, the multicast traffic generated within the wired network can reach clients located in the wireless ad hoc network.