Multicast Session Membership Size Estimation

The problem of estimating the number of members in a multicast session through probabilistic polling corresponds to that of estimating the parameter n of the Binomial n p , distribution. This allows an interval estimator for n to be derived. The tradeoff between the relative dispersion of this estimator and the overhead it requires is characterized in a manner that may be mapped to application requirements. Based on the binomial model and its analysis, improvements are suggested to the probabilistic polling mechanisms described in [Bolot, Turletti, and Wakeman 1994], and [Nonnenmacher and Biersack 1998], and [Nonnenmacher 1998]. We also derive the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) for the last of these.