The IP Multicast Initiative has won support from twelve new companies, including four internet service providers. The new members include Internet and network service providers GTE Internetworking, One Call Communications Inc, Internet Initiative Japan and Internex Information Services. The IP Multicast Initiative is managed by Campbell, California-based Stardust Technologies Inc, and was established last October to address the problem of overcrowding on the Internet and corporate intranets (CI No 3,019). IP Multicast applications send one copy of requested information to a series of pre-arranged addresses to only those who have requested it. If Multicasting wasn’t present the same information would be carried over the network with multiple copies being sent to all the addresses, thereby consuming much higher bandwidth. The addition of internet service providers to the list of supporters marks its move into the commercial marketplace. When the initiative kicked off last year it had 22 members. That figure has now grown to 74 in less than a year. In May Novell Inc signed up (CI No 3,156) joining the likes of Microsoft Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, Cisco Systems Inc, Sun Microsystems Inc, 3Com Corp and Digital Equipment Corp.
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