A stream of multicast messages is forwarded through a network to a plurality of subscriber devices (18). The stream is inverse multiplexed and transmitted distributed over a plurality of communication channels (14). A plurality of inverse demultiplexers (16) is provided, to reassemble a plurality of copies of the stream from the multiplexed streams from the communication channels at different locations. Preferably, the final communication channels to a plurality of subscribers (e.g. telephone lines to different homes) are used as communication channels for said inverse multiplexing and the inversely multiplexed data is communicated locally (17) between the subscribers to enable reassembly of copies of the stream.