APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR EFFICIENT DELIVERY OF MULTICAST DATA OVER A PERSONAL ACCESS COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM (PACS)

摘要

A method, apparatus, article of manufacture, and a memory structure for multicasting data in a cellular personal access communication system is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of allocating a multicast packet terminal identifier to a multicast group when a subscriber unit in a cell requests membership in the multicast group, receiving a multicast packet having a global multicast address, determining a cell identifier from a mapping of the global multicast address to at least one local multicast identifier and a cell identifier, and forwarding the multicast packet to the cell according to the cell identifier. The apparatus comprises a radio port controller unit (106) having a packet data control unit (304) coupled to a radio port (104) configured to receive a multicast packet and a packet forwarding module (402). The packet data control unit (304) includes an allocation module (520) configured to allocate a local multicast identifier to a multicast group when a subscriber unit (102) in a cell (112) requests membership in the multicast group. The packet forwarding module (402) is configured to determine a cell identifier from a mapping of the global multicast address to at least one local packet terminal identifier and a cell identifier and to forward the multicast packet to a cell (112) according to the cell idenfier.