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Statement #1 was made from memory...

Statement #2 comes directly from the standard. The statement in the standard is referring to RTS/CTS in the situation where it is turned on by the user (RTS threshold). I cannot find anywhere in the standard that states that, in the case of multicast traffic, the protection mechanism (either RTS/CTS or CTS-to-Self) should NOT occur because of a multicast frame.

The entire 9.13 section of the standard, titled Protection Mechanisms for ERP Receivers, has no mention of any protection exceptions for multicast traffic.

So from researching the standards on this topic, I conclude that an AP (the standards actually say any Wi-Fi STA which includes AP's) should employ protection mechanism procedures, no matter if it is broadcast, unicast or multicast traffic.

GT