Multi-Resolution Broadcast/Multicast Systems for MBMS

Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS) supports downlink streaming and download-and-play type services to large groups of users. From the radio perspective, MBMS includes point-to-point (PtP) and point-to-multipoint (PtM) modes. This paper investigates and presents different multi-resolution broadcast systems for Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) cellular mobile networks, namely, multi-code, hierarchical QAM constellations and multi-antenna (MIMO) systems. Each one present performance gains over conventional single-resolution broadcast systems. A comparison is made between the three proposed multi-resolution systems. The use of High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) to multicast video streaming as a multi-resolution system, associated or not to MIMO, can be employed by the MBMS PtP mode, but dependently on the deployment scenarios it can yield substantial reduction in resource demand and optimization of the allocated radio resources