Cross-layer coordination for efficient contents delivery in LTE eMBMS traffic

Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services (eMBMS) in LTE standards provides Raptor code as Forward Error Correction (FEC) scheme in application layer. Hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) is also used to increase reliability at MAC layer for packet recovery. The two mechanisms, with no interactions between them, may either lead to more redundancy in download link (DL) network resource or meaningless drops of recovery data at application layer. In this paper, we first analyze tradeoff between two recovery mechanisms and then present a probabilistic model to find optimal Raptor encoding rate and number of HARQ retransmissions for a given network condition. This can achieve a saving of upto 13–15% in DL network resources compared to existing schemes while ensuring reliable file delivery. It was also found to reduce the transmission delay (by minimizing the number of re-transmissions). The model was evaluated using LTE-A simulation framework.