Analysis of a Multiple Content Variant Extension of the Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service

Inhalt:
This paper describes and analyzes an extension of the Multimedia Broadcast / Multicast Service (MBMS) that supports the distribution of multiple variants of the same content to heterogeneous receivers. We first outline the standard MBMS model and then describe our extended MBMS model, detailing the modifications that it imposes on MBMS state management and signaling procedures. We then provide an analytical framework for the comparison of our extended model with both a single and a multiple service approach based on standard MBMS mechanisms. We apply this framework to a practical setting and show that our proposal is far more scalable in terms of signaling overhead than its standards based competitor.