Cooperative Multicast Scheduling Scheme for IPTV Service over IEEE 802.16 Networks

Exploiting the broadcast nature of wireless communications, multicast transmission is an efficient way to improve the network throughput by transmitting the same contents to multiple receivers simultaneously. It has been considered as a key technology for supporting emerging services in next-generation IEEE 802.16 based wireless metropolitan area networks (WMANs), such as Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) and mobile TV. Therefore, it is critical to devise efficient multicast scheduling schemes to support these multimedia services. In this paper, we propose a novel multicast scheduling scheme, using downlink cooperative transmission for achieving high throughput not only for all multicast groups but also for each group member. Extensive simulations are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed scheme.