MULTICAST DATA COMMUNICATION SYSTEM AND METHOD THEREOF

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method capable of avoiding the traffic concentration to a transmission side packet converter and of setting dynamically correspondence of a multicast address and an address transmission side packet converter in the case of utilizing a one to multi broadcast type application by using multicast communication system for employing a unicast tunnel in a wide area IP network. SOLUTION: The multicast communication system includes an address management server for managing correspondence of the multicast address and the address of the transmission side packet converter, a receiver side packet converter references an address management table for recording the correspondence of the multicast address and the address of the transmission side packet converter when the receiver side packet converter receives a reception request of an IP multicast receiver, inquires of the address management server about the address of the transmission side packet converter when the address management table describes no address of the transmission side packet converter corresponding to the requested multicast address, and the receiver side packet converter periodically transmits the reception request to the obtained address of the transmission side packet converter. COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT