Further Enhanced Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service in LTE-Advanced Pro

Abstract

Consumer demand for high definition video is growing, but current Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks lack sufficient capacity to broadcast the typical 10 to 20 TV channels concurrently broadcast in a geographic region. In response to growing demand, the Third Generation Partnership Program initiated a study into TV enhancements for multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) for LTE. 3GPP's further enhanced MBMS (FeMBMS) enables higher per cell bandwidth for MBMS services, simultaneous reception of both unicast and multicast services from different mobile network operators (MNOs), MBMS-dedicated cells, standalone MBMS, non-subscriber reception of TV services, and larger cell sizes. In addition, shared enhanced MBMS (eMBMS) networks and MBMS transport services enable MNOs to minimize costs from the content providers, while at the same time incentivizing the content providers to exploit LTE for linear TV services. Finally, by utilizing MBMS on demand (MooD) and dynamic MBMS, the resource allocations to the MBMS flows can be dynamically adapted; for example, the users' quality of experience can be further improved beyond that of legacy static MBMS resource allocation. This article describes the enhancements made to LTE eMBMS related to TV services, MooD, and use cases for each of the enhancements. Additionally, MBMS in 5G next-generation radio is also discussed. The scope of this article comprises the terminal, radio access, core architecture, and related services.