Multicast in VoIP – Broadcasting Audio/Video Streams

Multicast VoIP transmits a single stream of audio or video to a large number of listeners simultaneously, to save on bandwidth, enhance call quality, and maintain a business communication flow that is smooth and free of stress. 

Imagine trying to tell a story to your team over a dodgy conference call. You say, “Can everyone hear me?” And half the team says, You are breaking up! meanwhile the others remain silent (because of course they do).

Suppose, however, that you could smooth that story out, and put it in crystallinity and with the sound of a smooth voice, through to the whole of the world, without congesting the wires and sounding as though you were talking in a biscuit-tin.

That’s multicast VoIP in action, the unsung hero behind efficient audio and video streaming in modern VoIP phone services.

The One-to-One Bottleneck

In a typical VoIP setup, when you transmit an audio or video stream to another system, your system transmits the same stream to every receiver. This is referred to as unicast which is one-to-one delivery system.

That would be all right when you are making one call. However, in an office environment during a rush hour, or when the company is making a company-wide announcement, your network breaks. It is like making 50 pizzas delivery in 50 different cars. Sure, everyone gets fed eventually, but the effort and petrol cost are ridiculous.

Unicast is simple, but it’s greedy on bandwidth. Every duplicate stream eats into your network capacity, slowing down everything else (like that poor intern trying to upload a report).

When More means Messier.

Imagine now, you are live streaming a town hall meeting or a video briefing at the desk everyday to 100 desks. Each of the streams is a duplicate of the network as 100 messengers bring the same pizza to the same street.

Your bandwidth cries. Your routers wheeze. Your IT manager begins discussing what he means by packet loss as though it is the latest epidemic.

Unicast overload can even choke even the best business phone systems in the UK. And when the network is overloaded, the quality is affected, the voice is robotized, the videos begin to stall between blinking, and a meeting is an accidental mime show.

Enter Multicast One Stream, Many Listeners

This is where multicast VoIP comes in. With multicast, you only need to send one stream instead of one hundred individual streams and leave the rest to your network.

Think of it as broadcasting on a radio frequency:

• You (the sender) speak once.
• Everyone tuned in (the receivers) hears the message at the same time.

It’s efficient, elegant, and makes your IT team look like geniuses.

The Magic in Action:

• You start a live audio/video feed for your office.
• The multicast stream travels just once across the network.
• It is only copied where the switches and routers require it.
• Anyone can listen to it and watch it without straining your bandwidth.

That’s the power of multicast VoIP: less clutter, more clarity.

Real-World Analogy: From Tea Breaks to Tech

Consider multicast as tea-making at an office. You do not prepare 20 separate cups at a time but you boil a large pot and pour everyone. Productive and time-saving, and no one is waiting to take their cuppa.

That’s exactly how multicast in VoIP works: one “brew” of data served to many endpoints at once. 

Where It’s Actually Used

You will be finding multicast quietly going to work behind the scenes in places like

• Schools and universities: Live lectures across multiple rooms.
• Retail and hospitality: Communication or online signage.
• Companies: Live events, emergencies or video conferences

For UK businesses using VoIP telephone services, multicast helps deliver real-time communication without overloading the pipes.

Why It Matters for SMEs

Small and medium business tends to believe that multicast is overkill technology. It’s not. It is a sensible upgrade that increases the efficiency and scalability of VoIP phone services.

With bandwidth freed up, you get:

• Improved quality of call and video.
• Satisfied users (less Can you hear me now? moments).
•  A smoother network even when the traffic is at its peak.

And the best part? You do not have to purchase new shiny equipment. Multicast is already supported by most modern routers and cloud PBX systems, they just need someone to turn it on.

Final Thought

Multicast VoIP is not a glamorous thing, but it is one of those behind the scenes functions that make the communication that is presently going on possible. It is clean, quick and does not strain your network by keeping your business running on a single connection.

Hence, the next time your workmate at the office says: Let us stream this live, you can nod confidently that your system can stream it.