This the thing that I find hard to understand. Multicast to me seems like a cost reduction strategy rather than a revenue improvement one.....Does no one want to reduce costs? Or is the easier path to profit through increased revenue....

Sure, it reduces costs, but, who pays to get the content in? The ISP. How do they pass that cost on to thier customers fairly? IMO the only way to fairly do it is to watch your IGMP and see who is listening to what, and devide the costs up nicely. However, the cost per customer will differ per stream and also per minute. Did I mention the fact that you now have to account per multicast group and keep track of IGMP on all your routers... And what about in NZ where we have one or 2 main ISPs, and many smaller ISPs hanging off them. The cost that the smaller ISP gets charged by the larger ISP changes all the time now too... as a smaller ISP, try factor that into your billing system. Nathan Ward