MBMS service provision and its challenges

摘要

History of broadcast within mobile environment dates back to Cell Broadcast Service (CBS) where traffic information is broadcasted over the radio interface. CBS however cannot satisfy the bandwidth and QoS required to send streaming services which include video, text and speech. Multicast Broadcast Multimedia Service (MBMS) is a Packet Switched based services that extends the concept of Broadcast services, in order to address the shortcomings of CBS. Most importantly it introduces the concept of a Multicast service in UMTS. One of the main differences between a Multicast service and a Broadcast service is the fact that multicast services are subscribed to. MBMS services are seen as an attractive revenue generator for big companies broadcasting short adverts, over the mobile phone.