An Efficient Handover Algorithm for MBMS Enabled 3G Mobile Cellular Networks

With the introduction of Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) in 3rd Generation (3G) Networks, the Radio Network Controller (RNC) for radio efficiency reasons can use either Dedicated or Common resources to distribute the same content in a Cell. Thus the mobile users that are on the move may have to deal with dynamic changes of network resources when crossing the cell edge, introducing new types of handovers (MBMS Handovers). Executing an MBMS Handover using the current Handover Algorithm will result in inefficiencies. Therefore, for efficient execution of these new types of handover a different approach has to be followed. This paper proposes a new Handover Algorithm which efficiently maximizes the overall system capacity when mobile MBMS users have to deal with these new types of handovers.