Multiprotocol Encapsulation, or MPE for short, is a Data link layer protocol definedby DVB which has been published as part of ETSI EN 301 192. Itprovides means to carry packet oriented protocols (like for instanceIP) on top of MPEG transport stream (TS).
Another encapsulation method is Unidirectional Lightweight Encapsulation (ULE) which was developed and standardized within the IETF as RFC 4326.
MPE uses MPEG-2 Private Table sections to carry the userdatagrams. The section header is used to convey:
MAC addresses from 1 to 6 bytes length may be used. The format ofMPEG-2 DSM-CC sections happens to be compatible with DVB MPE.
A complete IP service offering over MPEG-2 TS can be established byorganizing MPE streams into one or more IP Platforms carried on abroadcast network by means of the IP/MAC Notification Tablemechanism which is also defined in ETSI EN 301 192.
Both major European satellite operators (SES andEutelsat) are offering commercial IP services using MPE (such as ASTRA2Connect) to both businesses and consumers.