Design of NGN Mobile Multicast Group Service Enablers

Telecommunications industry has constantly enriched user communication experience by adding services in a service orientated approach. These services are supported by end-to-end design and integration of functions within the infrastructure. Convergence of mobile and fixed telephone systems, computer network (Internet) and broadcast infrastructure has motivated the telecommunications industry to design services such that they are capable of operating across many access networks. The difficulty is that many of the services are deeply entwined within a specific network. 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Service) is a typical example. Providing multicast group communication is a common service required of any network. This paper discusses how the 3GPP MBMS service was deconstructed and implemented as OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) type enablers suitable for NGN (Next Generation Networks) together with issues that emerged as the work progressed. It also includes the design of new features to support ad-hoc groups, context aware groups and user generated group content.