Multicast Virtual Private Networks

Abstract

When a customer (e.g, a business, university, or branch of government) needs secure and reliable telecommunications, it can build its own network, or it can go to a Service Provider (SP), such as AT&T, who offers Virtual Private Network (VPN) services over its backbone network. The adjective virtual reflects the fact that the customer does not have to manage a backbone network, that the SP backbone routing procedures are transparent to the customer, and that multiple customers can use the SP backbone without impacting each other (if the SP backbone is properly engineered).