The objective of this document is to show you how to configure multicast to unicast feature on your Cisco Business Wireless (CBW) Access Point (AP).
If you have CBW gear in your network, you can now use the new multicast to unicast feature in firmware version 10.6.1.0! Click if you would like step-by-step instructions on doing a firmware update.
Multicast allows a host to send packets to a subset of all hosts as a group transmission. The multicast to unicast feature enables better usage of the wireless bandwidth by converting the multicast frame to a unicast frame over the air. This results in a more reliable multicast stream to wireless clients. Each media stream client acknowledges receiving a video IP multicast stream. This feature is also known as multicast direct.
Things to remember:
Login to the web user interface (UI) of the CBW AP.
Switch to expert view by clicking the bi-directional arrow icon.
Navigate to Wireless Settings > WLANs.
Choose the WLAN on which you want to enable multicast to unicast feature and click edit.
Select the Traffic Shaping tab.
From the QoS drop-down menu, select Platinum or Gold.
If QoS is set to Silver or Bronze, you will not be able to turn on the multicast direct toggle button in Step 8.
Navigate to Advanced tab.
Enter the Multicast IP address and click the toggle to enable Multicast Direct.
When Multicast Direct toggle button is enabled, the multicast packets will be converted to unicast packets by the AP and will be sent to the clients. If it is disabled, the multicast packets will be directly sent to the wireless clients.
Click Apply to save the settings.
Once the WLAN is configured, navigate to Services > Media Stream.
Services will only be visible under Expert View.
Enable Global Multicast to support multicast traffic on Primary AP and Multicast Direct to enhance the video streaming for wireless clients. By default, both are disabled.
Global Multicast cannot be enabled without configuring IPv4 multicast address in WLAN section. Enabling the Multicast Direct feature does not automatically reset the existing client state. The wireless clients must re-join the multicast stream after enabling the multicast direct feature on the Primary AP.
(Optional)
You can enable the Session Announcement State. If this is enabled, clients are informed each time a Primary AP is not able to serve the multicast direct data to the client. Configure the Session Announcement parameters by entering the following:
Click Apply.
To add a media stream, click Add New Stream.
Configure the following parameters:
Click the Update button.
To see which client systems are connecting to the stream and if multicast direct is enabled, navigate to Services > Media Stream. Scroll down to Media Stream Clients section.
In this example, three wireless clients are connected to the multicast stream and all three are using multicast direct.
There you go! You have now successfully configured multicast to unicast feature on your CBW AP.
Revision | Publish Date | Comments |
---|---|---|
1.0 |
02-Sep-2021 |
Initial Release |