Multicast management mechanism for mobile networks

A multicast management mechanism for mobile networks, each mobile network having a mobile device, a short message-service center (SM-SC), a short message service gateway mobile switching center (SMS GMSC), an HLR, a first mobile switching center (MSC), a second mobile switching center, a first visitor location register (VLR) and a second visitor location register, when the mobile device moves from a first location area (LA) of the first MSC to a second LA of the second MSC, the multicast management mechanism comprising the steps:

• receiving a location signal from the second MSC by the mobile device;
• according to the location signal, performing a multicast user registration to register the latest LA of the multicast user who owns the mobile device;
• according to the latest location area, establishing a multicast table including a VLR record table in a home location register (HLR) and LA record tables, wherein the VLR record table records VLR addresses located by all multicast users and the total number of multicast users in each VLR and LA record tables record LA addresses in each VLR and the total number of multicast users in each LA;
• and
• according to the multicast table, performing a multicast forward procedure when a message is on broadcast, to complete the multicast message forward.

The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 5, wherein the multicast message forward further comprises:

• Step 1:
• the SM-SC sending a multicast message to the SMS GMSC.
• Step 2:
• through a short message routing request (MAP_SEND_ROUTING_INFO_FOR_SM), the SMS GMSC requesting routing information of the mobile device from the HLR 30 so that the HLR 30 searches the VLR record table according to the routing information;
• Step 3:
• if the VLR record table's content is greater than zero, the HLR sending a mobile station roaming number (MSRN) to the SMS GMSC through a short message routing request acknowledgement (MAP_SEND_ROUTING_INFO_FOR_SM_ack)
• Step 4:
• according to the MSRN, the SMS GMSC delivering the multicast message by sending short message forward messages (MAP_FORWARD_SHORT_MESSAGE) to respective MSCs of the multicast users who own the mobile device;
• Step 5:
• the respective MSCs sending a short message forward location area request (MAP_SEND_INFO_FOR_MT_SMS) to its corresponding VLR to obtain the related information of the multicast users and according to the short message forward location area request to search the LA record tables to identify the LAs where the multicast users reside;
• Step 6:
• after the LA record tables has recorded the multicast users, performing a paging request to LAs having the LA record table's content greater than zero;
• Step 7:
• according to the paging request, using a standard GSM/UMTS paging procedure to broadcast the multicast message to multicast users in the LAs having the LA record table's content greater than zero;
• and
• Step 8:
• the multicast users including the multicast user who owns the mobile device starting to receive the multicast message.
• The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 18, wherein in step 3, the MSRN provides the identification of the respective MSCs of the multicast users who own the mobile device.