Both mashhur and mutawatir may have several transmission routes, but their criteria differ. Tawatur requires sufficient multiplicity throughout the relevant stages, a sensory basis, and the resulting certainty. A mashhur report has more than two routes without attaining all these requirements.
Case 1: Three independent transmitters report something; their chains may be investigated. The number three does not itself establish tawatur.
Case 2: Many later narrators repeat a report, but all their routes descend from one earlier transmitter. That earlier solitary point remains relevant to the technical classification.
Everyday popularity, several genuinely distinct routes, and established tawatur must therefore remain distinct ideas.