Exploiting the benefits of in-band D2D communications for 5G-MBS use cases

For the upcoming 5G systems and beyond (5G/B5G), the multicast broadcast services (5G-MBS) capability is one of the most appealing use cases. The effective integration of Point-to-Multipoint (PTM) communication will address the ever-growing traffic demands, disruptive enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) multimedia services, massive connectivity, and low latency applications. In such context, the envisaged multicast resource management solutions can take advantage of the radio access technology (RAT) Device-to-Device (D2D) communications to extend the service area, handle the multi-user diversity, improve the overall quality of service (QoS) and manage overload situations at the base stations. This work aims to study the advantage of using in-band D2D communications as a multicast relay for improving the network performance of 5 G -MBS use cases. We evaluate the multicast access technique Conventional Multicast Scheme (CMS) and K-Means subgrouping based on Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA), leveraging in-band D2D communications to enhance its resource efficiency and QoS. Linklevel simulations recreating specific MBS use cases are used to assess the proposal’s efficacy. As validation criteria, we assess the system aggregated data rate (ADR), proportional fairness (PF), and the minimum dissatisfaction index (MDI), considering various constraints associated with multimedia services, available resources, and number of users.