In terms of live events this was meant to be solved by multicasting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_multicast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_multicast or htt

In terms of live events this was meant to be solved by multicasting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_multicast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_multicast or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_address http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_address The point being that if you have a stream of data that is the same for a large number of recipients, you can send the data down the tubes once, and it's then shared by recipients. Although doesn't solve the general case (people wanting to watch the same thing, but out of order).