Feasibiity analysis of MBMS deployment with the introduction of LTE

Multimedia Broadcast Multicast service (MBMS) proposed by 3GPP for efficient use of network resources in broadcast and multicast services, provides the operator a delivery mechanism to simultaneously send to multiple recipients at high speed. Although MBMS was introduced in 3GPP Release 6 at the time of 3G networks, the MBMS feature did not find much attention from the 3G network operators. This thesis studies the technical and market feasibility for a successful MBMS deployment today at the time of commercial LTE deployment. UE and RAN advancements that make MBMS technologically feasible are studied together with the market feasibility factors such as user demand on media streaming and the impending data explosion. The thesis concludes that today at the time of LTE, it is more feasible from both technology and market perspectives to deploy MBMS in comparison to the time of 3G. As a future work, the thesis provides some suggestions that the operators should take care of before deploying MBMS