| Abstract | Along with the widespread deployment of the Third Generation (3G) cellular networks, the fast-improving
capabilities of the mobile devices, content, and service providers are increasingly interested in supporting
multicast communications over wireless networks and in particular over Universal Mobile Telecommunications
System (UMTS). To this direction, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is currently standardizing the
Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS) framework of UMTS. In this paper, we present an overview of
the MBMS multicast mode of UMTS. We analytically present the multicast mode of the MBMS and analyze its
performance in terms of packet delivery cost under various network topologies, cell types, and multicast users?
distributions. Furthermore, for the evaluation of the scheme, we consider different transport channels for the
transmission of the multicast data over the UMTS Terrestrial Radio-Access Network (UTRAN) interfaces. Finally,
we propose a scheme for the efficient radio bearer selection that minimizes total packet delivery cost.
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