Investigation of link layer algorithms and play-out buffer requirements for efficient multicast services in 3G cellular systems

The success of 3G networks depends on the possibility to attract customers to this new technology. Therefore, new services using the spectrum in an efficient manner while satisfying the customers are needed. We introduce link layer algorithms that are suitable for multicast transmission in 3G cellular systems and we present their impact on video application in terms of play-out buffer requirements. By our approach we show that hybrid ARQ solutions can be successfully employed to perform error control in the multicast transmission case. Using these schemes, performance can be increased thereby increasing system capacity and lowering the cost per served user. In the final part of the paper, these solutions are extended for the important multicast video streaming case, where new schemes are devised to avoid the throughput inefficiencies of fully reliable error recovery algorithms.