End-to-end scheduling techniques for mobile broadcast and multicast services

Several mobile operators offer "broadeast-like" services based on the classical radio and TV channel delivery model. In order to efficiently support mobile multicast and broadcast services 3GPP has standardised MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services) for UNITS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) in Release 6. MBMS aims at providing a richer set of multimedia experience to its subscribers and is able to serve many more subscribers than its unicast counterpart. The delivery of multicast/broadcast channels over capacity limited radio links requires intelligent scheduling mechanisms that make best use of the available resources. This paper highlights the need for the design of an end-to-end scheduling framework for MBMS by studying scheduling at both the RAN (Radio Access Network) and CN (Core Network) level. The methodology involves introducing a distribution of the identified scheduling sub-functions among all involved entities and includes feedback strategies as well as proposals for the architectural evolution.