Support of Multicast Services in 3GPP

— In line with the growing interest in efficient data distribution services to large mobile user groups, 3GPP is standardizing the introduction of support for multicast services into GSM and WCDMA networks. The mobile infrastructure needs to be enhanced in the wireless and in the wireline parts to support new signaling and payload transport procedures. Also mobility , charging and radio resource handling aspects have to be considered. Starting from group distribution services and their requirements, this paper motivates and describes the solutions defined and discussed within 3GPP, namely the introduction of new nodes, new bearers and new procedures to efficiently support multicast services.