A resource reservation protocol (RSVP), a flexible and scalable receiver-oriented simplex protocol, is described. RSVP provides receiver-initiated reservations to accommodate heterogeneity among receivers as well as dynamic membership changes; separates the filters from the reservation, thus allowing channel changing behavior; supports a dynamic and robust multipoint-to-multipoint communication model by taking a soft-state approach in maintaining resource reservations; and decouples the reservation and routing functions. A simple network configuration with five hosts connected by seven point-to-point links and three switches is presented to illustrate how RSVP works. Related work and unresolved issues are discussed.< >