The Effect of Multicast User Number and Distribution on the Performance of RRM Policies in Terrestrial-HAP MBMS Systems

The strong user need for receiving multimedia content while on the move opens up new challenges in future hybrid wireless communication scenarios. Delivering broadcast and multicast multimedia services through existing cellular networks is surely one of the toughest issues to investigate. The wide coverage area of High Altitude Platforms (HAPs) makes them a very attractive solution to deliver multicast/broadcast applications to a large number of sparse users. The authors examine the implications arising from the integration of UMTS and HAP systems to provide Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Services (MBMS). In this reference scenario, two radio resource management policies are compared in terms of overall offered Grade of Service (GoS). By a thorough simulation investigation, the performance trade-off between a "User Number oriented" vs. a "User Distribution oriented" solution is evaluated. The different conditions under which one approach outperforms the other are investigated, and the degree of achieved performance augmentation is highlighted.