Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) in LTE: An Assessment of System Performance Under Realistic Radio Network Engineering Conditions

With the explosive and sustained growth of data usage on mobile broadband wireless networks (3G and 4G), new techniques need to be found to deliver data to end users efficiently. One of the key drivers of the data demand is Video. Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) is one technique in LTE that provides a broadcast bearer to deliver video content and file delivery to an unlimited number of users. This bearer makes use of multiple cell sites to build a "single frequency network" (SFN) zone with identical downlink transmissions over part of the LTE OFDM waveform that combine at the user equipment's antenna in such a way that what is normally an neighbouring cell site contributing interfering interference source is converted tobecomes a source of a useful signal thus improving the overall information signal to interference ratio and thus the spectral efficiency. In this paper, the eMBMS technology and architecture are presented along with estimates of the achieved performance and impact on radio network engineering. We conclude that while the eMBMS ismay not be an appropriate solution to offer nationwide contiguous services throughout a mobile network it may be efficiently used across an entire citymetropolitan area and the surrounding "capacity limited" rural areas when using a low radio band such as 700 or 800 MHz offering an impressive SEspectral efficiency of 1.5 b/s/Hz.