Method for managing multicast group in mobile communication system

• US 20040029616A1
• Filed: 05/16/2003
• Published: 02/12/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Kim, Eun-Jung, Park, Jin-Young
• Granted Patent: US 7,162,241 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/560
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/24 Negotiating SLA [Service Level Agreement]; Negotiating QoS [Quality of Service]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/08 User group management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 60/00 Affiliation to network, e.g. registration; Terminating affiliation with the network, e.g. de-registration
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/186 Processing of subscriber group data

Abstract

A multicast service of a 3GPP Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is disclosed. By allowing an RNC to manage multicast group member information by multicast services on multicast areas, when a user terminal being currently provided with an MBMS service moves, the RNC sends information on the movement of the terminal to a core network. Since the RNC notifies the core network of the terminal'"'"'s movement selectively on the basis of the multicast group member information by multicast services on the multicast area, the network resource can be effectively used, and especially, unnecessary transmission of terminal'"'"'s movement information from the RNC to the multicast group managing entity of the core network can be prevented.

Claims

1. A method for managing a multicast group in a mobile communication system providing a multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) to a multicast group consisting of a plurality of terminals, comprising:

managing multicast group member information by a network controller (RNC); and

selectively notifying a core network of movement of a terminal on the basis of the multicast group member information by the RNC.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the multicast group member information is information by multicast services on multicast areas managed by one RNC.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein an initial value of the multicast group member information is provided from a multicast group managing entity of the core network.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the multicast group managing entity is one of broadcast multicast-service center (BM-SC), a serving GPRS support node (SGSN) and a gate GRPS (GGSN).

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the RNC determines whether to notify movement of a terminal by comparing movement information of the terminal and multicast group member information.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein if the terminal is moved to a multicast area (MA) that the RAN manages and the corresponding MA can provide an MBMS service, the RNA updates the multicast group member information and does not notify the core network of the movement of the terminal.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein if a terminal is moved to an MA that the RNC does not manage, the RNC updates the multicast group member information and notifies the core network of the movement of the terminal.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein if the terminal is moved to a multicast area (MA) that the RAN manages and the RNA can not provide the MBMS service, the RNA updates the multicast group member information and notifies the core network of the movement of the terminal.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein if the terminal moves to a multicast area (MA) that the RNC does not manage and the corresponding MA can not support the MBMS service, the RNC resets a new multicast group and updates the multicast group information of the core network.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein if the terminal moves to a multicast area (MA) that the RNC does not manage and the corresponding MA supports the MBMS service, the RNC updates the multicast group information of the core network.

11. A method for managing a multicast group in a mobile communication system providing a multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) to a multicast group consisting of a plurality of terminals, comprising receiving an initial value of multicast group member information from a core network;

managing the multicast group member information by a network controller (RNC) according to movement of a terminal between multicast areas; and

comparing the movement information of the terminal and the multicast group member information by the RNC and selectively notifying the core network of the movement of the terminal by the RNC.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the multicast group member information is information by multicast services on a multicast area (MA) that one RNC manages.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the multicast group managing entity is one of a broadcast multicast-service center (BM-SC), a serving GPRS support node (SGSN) and a gateway GPRS (GGSN).

14. The method of claim 11, wherein if the terminal is moved to a multicast area (MA) that the RAN manages and the corresponding MA can provide an MBMS service, the RNA updates the multicast group member information and does not notify the core network of the movement of the terminal.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein if a terminal is moved to an MA that the RNC does not manage, the RNC updates the multicast group member information and notifies the core network of the movement of the terminal.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein if the terminal is moved to a multicast area (MA) that the RAN manages and the RNA can not provide the MBMS service, the RNA updates the multicast group member information and notifies the core network of the movement of the terminal.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein if the terminal moves to a multicast area (MA) that the RNC does not manage and the corresponding MA can not support the MBMS service, the RNC resets a new multicast group and updates the multicast group information of the core network.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein if the terminal moves to a multicast area (MA) that the RNC does not manage and the corresponding MA supports the MBMS service, the RNC updates the multicast group information of the core network.