Resource Balancing of Unicast and Multicast Wireless Multimedia Services in 5G Networks

The rapid growth of the demand for group-oriented services requires wireless systems to efficiently manage both unicast and multicast applications. 5G network operators have to implement efficient radio resource management techniques to handle traffic flows that differ in the (i) required quality of service, (ii) transmission mode (i.e., unicast and multicast), and (iii) perceived channel quality. A possible solution to effectively handle mixed unicast and multicast traffic is to manage unicast subscribers in virtual groups, similarly to multicast users, according to a Virtual Unicast Group (VUG) approach. In this paper we analyze the ability of VUG to flexibly distribute resources between unicast and multicast wireless video services when varying the cost function utilized for distributing network resources.