Method and system for QoS management in multicast multimedia services, related network, terminal for use in that network and computer program product therefor

摘要

A QoS management technique for multimedia multicasting to a group of users (UE1, UE2, UE3, UE4) within MBMS service in mobile networks is presented. Each service multimedia content is available with different qualities of service (QoS0, QoS1, QoS2) at different IP multicast addresses (a.b.c.d; a.b.c.e; a.b.c.f). The system includes at least one element (BM-SC) configured for dynamically estimating, for each user (UE1, UE2, UE3, UE4) accessing a service, the quality (K1, K2, ..., Kn) of the respective link and determining a corresponding quality of service (QoS0, QoS1, QoS2) that can be guaranteed to the user and a corresponding proper IP multicast address (a.b.c.d; a.b.c.e; a.b.c.f) the user must be associated with. The element (BM-SC) managing the system is configured for forcing to leave their current IP multicast address and to join the proper corresponding IP multicast address (a.b.c.d; a.b.c.e; a.b.c.f) those users (UE1, UE2, UE3, UE4) for which the corresponding quality of service (QoS0, QoS1, QoS2) does not correspond to the current quality (K1, K2, ..., Kn) of said respective link, thereby ensuring that each user (UE1, UE2, UE3, UE4) accessing the system is associated to the proper IP multicast address (a.b.c.d; a.b.c.e; a.b.c.f).