Broadcast and Multicast Transmission over HSDPA

In this paper we describe the concept of broadcast and multicast (BCMC) transmission over HSDPA, a shared high-speed packet data channel on the downlink defined in the UMTS standard. We show that the unique features of HSDPA such as link adaptation, channel-sensitive scheduling and HARQ can be used to provide performance gains over conventional MBMS transmission on the FACH channel. We address various aspects of system design and performance in the design of a BCMC system over HSDPA, and present a detailed performance analysis using system level simulations. Some of the main objectives of our BCMC design are to enable broadcast and multicast services on HSDPA networks without requiring significant changes to the HSDPA standard in 3GPP, and to ensure that the solution is backward compatible with Release-5 HSDPA mobiles.