What Is Multicast Backbone (MBone)?

The Multicast Backbone (MBone) is the backbone of the Internet. It's a place to connect with your friends, family and colleagues. It's a place to watch videos of cats jumping in slow motion and laughing at them. It's where you can listen to audio recordings of people talking about cats jumping in slow motion. It's also a place to connect with others who share your interests and hobbies. MBone is primarily designed to multicast audio and video signals over the Internet. It requires special hardware and software, but it's worth it because it's so much fun! MBone! The Multicast Backbone (MBone) was first conceived in 1990 as an experiment to see what would happen if we tried to transmit multicast traffic over the Internet. Since then, it has grown into the largest multicast network in the world, used for everything from audio and video streaming for TV channels to video conferencing. In 1994, MBone was a multicast backbone for transmitting a musical concert. It marked the first time live sent audio and video sent audio and video over the Internet using multicasting technology. In 1995, Russia used an MBone multicast link in a sound research laboratory, a significant milestone in international cooperation between scientists across borders! MBone is like a skeleton. It's not there to do anything, but it's an essential body part that makes everything else work. It's like your appendix. You don't need it, but if you get rid of it, you will have the wrong time. Like your appendix, MBone was initially used as an experiment. Just as IP network infrastructure supports unicast and multicast networks, MBone connects IP networks supporting multicasting. MBone is not popular commercially because it is not widely used by Internet service providers (ISPs).