A Survey of Multicast Routing Protocols

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a self-configuring infrastructure less network of mobile devices connected by wireless. A protocol manages group membership and controls the path that multicast data takes over the network. Examples of multicast routing protocols include Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM). There are lots of multicast routing protocols, some works with wired networks while the others with wireless networks, some protocols deals with both wired and wireless networks. But applying this concept in Mobile Ad Hoc networks (Manets) is a big challenge. The main aim of this paper is to explore the performance characteristics of multicast protocols.