Video is an important factor of the load in cellular networks due to the growing popularity of streaming and linear services. In unicast transmission mode, the same data is transmitted as many times as the number of receivers demanding the same video content. Conversely, in broadcast transmissions using the Single Frequency Network (SFN) technique, a set of base stations perform synchronized transmission of the same waveform to a potentially infinite number of users. The objective of this study is to compare the performance of unicast and broadcast. More precisely, we determine the minimum number of users downloading the same data from which a broadcast transmission is more efficient than multiple unicast transmissions. In this paper, a model to calculate the Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (SINR) in unicast and broadcast modes is presented, considering Poisson distributed base stations, path loss, fading, shadowing, trisectored antennas, SFN with a different number of base stations and beamforming in unicast mode. Results show that even when an SFN is formed by just 2 base stations and unicast transmissions are performed using beamforming with 8 antennas per sector, broadcast outperforms unicast when there are at least 8 users per cell demanding the same content.

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The ever increasing demand for high quality multimedia content in mobile networks requires the implementation of techniques for efficient spectrum management. Broadcast transmission is the preferred solution for scenarios in which the same content is transmitted to many users at the same time. The objective of this study is to propose an analytical method to calculate the user threshold to switch from unicast to broadcast in order to reduce radio resource utilization. We compute the probability of coverage of a given location in a Multicast Broadcast Single Frequency Network (MBSFN) area using tools from stochastic geometry. This expression is general and valid for a point not necessarily in the center of the MBSFN area. We use it to develop a method to calculate the user threshold analytically.

Mission Critical Communication (MCC) Services are currently provided through secure and reliable Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) dedicated networks. These services include voice, data and video delivery. During an emergency, timely access to video streaming can increase situational awareness and enhance life-saving operations. Therefore, to improve the capabilities of PMR networks and benefit from the advantages of mutualization, standard cellular technologies based on 4G and 5G were adopted for MCC. In particular, the evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) is suitable for the transmission of group communication services. There are two broadcast transmission modes proposed in eMBMS: Multicast Broadcast Single Frequency Network (MBSFN) and Single-Cell Point-to-Multipoint (SC-PTM). In this paper, we compare MBSFN, SC-PTM and Unicast (UC) in Mission Critical (MC) scenarios from a resource use perspective. More precisely, we calculate the system spectral efficiency in each mode and estimate the number of users per square kilometer demanding the same MC service from which MBSFN and SC-PTM become more efficient than UC. Results show that SC-PTM is the best solution for locally restricted and small-scale emergencies while MBSFN is more suitable for emergencies during massive events or wide-area scenarios.