BT to enhance fibre broadband services with Multicast for GEA launch

BT Openreach has announced plans for an early market deployment launch for a Multicast for Generic Ethernet Access (GEA) service for fibre broadband networks.

To be provided alongside fibre-to-the-premises and fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband services, the new multicasting product will allow content providers to transmit a single stream of data that can be split into multiple parts near to the end user's site.

Multicasting can help service providers to avoid having to send multiple individual streams through their networks, thus reducing bandwidth requirements and associated backhaul costs.

Examples of where this technology is used include broadcast TV or the transmission of race results or share prices, while it can also be used to send media, software and firmware updates for various devices.

BT will be launching its new Multicast for GEA service on April 1st 2012, adding that it expects the technology to become "more relevant going forward, as data volume increases and where multicast can help to restrict network development costs".

This comes after BT Openreach announced plans for a fibre voice access over fibre-to-the-premises product later this month.