Abstract
The present invention provides a heuristic algorithm for application-layer minimum delay multicast. In the proposed method, the time required for processing data at the transmitting end, the time required for transmitting data and the time required for processing data at the receiving end are all taken into consideration. In the present invention, a network terminal apparatus can transmit data to a plurality of other network terminal apparatuses via an application-layer multicast manner in a relatively short period of time in comparison with the prior art, so as to increase the efficiency of application-layer multicast.