SINR-Based Transport Channel Selection for MBMS Applications

Multimedia broadcast multicast services (MBMS), introduced by Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) in universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) release 6 specification, have the aim to support downlink streaming and game services to groups of users. MBMS can supply users with resources in two different modalities: point-to-point (PtP) and point-to-multipoint (PtM). The power consumed by the network is an important topic to discuss when considering the presence of MBMS services. The UMTS system is, in fact, interference- limited; thus, the power available to Node B is limited and it must be enough to serve any user under its coverage. Therefore, the choice of the most efficient transport channel in terms of power consumption is a key aspect for the MBMS, since a wrong transport channel selection for the transmission of the MBMS data could adversely affect the overall capacity of the system. In this paper we search for the most efficient transport channel to convey MBMS data, by comparing the performance of the high speed downlink shared channel (HS-DSCH), the dedicated channel (DCH), and the forward access channel (FACH), for given transmission power levels and cell coverage size.