Supporting Multiple Content Variants in the Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service

(MBMS) was recently standardized for use by 3rd Generation cellular networks, aiming to support the economical distribution of multimedia content to large numbers of receivers. This paper proposes an MBMS extension supporting the distribution of multiple variants of the same content to heterogeneous receivers. We first outline the standard MBMS model, along with its state management and signaling procedures, and then describe our extended MBMS model, explaining the modifications it imposes on standard MBMS. We then explain how our approach can be combined either with layered coding or transcoding for the generation of the multiple content variants to be distributed. Finally, we compare our proposal via analysis and simulation with some alternatives based on standard MBMS. Both the analytical and the simulation results indicate that our proposal increases the number of satisfied users without spending excessive resources, thus striking a good balance between the standards based alternatives considered. I