Building Blocks

Data Plane

The data plane implements the content delivery path — from ingestion at CAST nodes, through multicast distribution across RELAY infrastructure, to playback on BEACON receivers at the deep network edge.

Blockcast's data plane follows the TreeDN architecture (RFC 9706), combining Source-Specific Multicast (SSM) with Automatic Multicast Tunneling (AMT) overlays for efficient, tree-structured content delivery to mass audiences.

• TreeDN: Multicast Content Delivery — Architecture overview, layered design, control plane, CAST sender, failover, and standards references.

  • AMT Relays & Multicast Backbone — How multicast bridges unicast-only networks. Covers Juniper MX hardware relays, Linux software relays, DRIAD discovery, and unified monitoring.

  • MAHP: Multicast Adaptive HTTP Proxy — High-throughput broadcast delivery via ROUTE/FLUTE. Covers the MAHP Sender, Receiver, FEC repair, encrypted caching, and how unmodified DASH/HLS players are served transparently.

  • MoQ & MMT: Streaming Delivery Paths — Sub-500ms delivery via QUIC/WebTransport and the unified MMT container format. Covers MoQ Relay forwarding, IWA browser gateway, Mobile SDK, delivery paths across ATSC 3.0/5G MBS/PIM-SSM/AMT, and end-to-end flows.

• Traffic Router — DNS, HTTP, and DRIAD routing modes for directing clients to optimal edge nodes.