Performance Evaluation of Multicast/Broadcast Single Frequency Network Operation for WCDMA

• Main Authors: Jotten, C.A., Sgraja, C., Schoneich, H.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Convolution; Equalizers; Multiaccess communication; Receivers; Receiving antennas; Signal to noise ratio; Spread spectrum communication
• ISSN: 1943-7439; 1943-7447
• DOI: 10.1109/ISSSTA.2008.22

Multimedia broadcast/multicast services (MBMS) have been introduced for WCDMA in release 6. At a given coverage, the efficiency of conventional MBMS is limited by low SNR users as, e.g., users located close to a cell edge, which are typically suffering from bad channel and inter-cell interference conditions. As a means to mitigate the situations of such users, multicast/broadcast single frequency network (MBSFN) operation has recently been specified in the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as an enhancement of MBMS. In WCDMA downlinks as considered here, MBSFN operation refers to the coherent use of a single common scrambling code and the same spreading codes to simultaneously broadcast identical MBMS channels in a number of cells that form an MBMS cluster. Through this, the users receive the signals from the cluster of MBSFN cells as one single signal over a joint radio channel, which exchanges inter-cell interference by constructive multi-path signals. This can be exploited by advanced receivers to yield impressive receiver output SNR gains as compared to conventional MBMS. This paper presents an experimental evaluation of the spectral efficiencies achievable in MBSFN and conventional MBMS. The results help to assess whether it is expedient to enhance WCDMA by MBSFN.