Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services: Concept & Capabilities

Being one of the first 3G operators in the world with early UMTS experience, 3 were able to focus immediately on the UMTS opportunities and the challenges ahead, resulting in 3 being one of the early drivers for Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (or MBMS). This paper provides a brief history regarding the drivers for MBMS. The paper moves on to explain why the architecture is defined as it is today, including the challenges associated with rolling out an MBMS enabled network and some key service opportunities identified for MBMS. In addition the paper presents an insight to the benefits that MBMS may provide for an increasingly busy 3G network and ends with a discussion on how MBMS may compliment future technologies.