Multicast and broadcast services over a mesh network

A multicast network control node, comprising:

• at least one memory;
• at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory;
• and
• at least one network interface, coupled to the at least one memory and to both a first radio access base station and a second radio access base station and to a multicast packet gateway,
• wherein the at least one processor performs steps including:
• providing a virtualized interface of a single network node to the multicast packet gateway by hiding identifiers for the first radio access base station and the second radio access base station, thereby virtualizing the first radio access base station and second radio access base station to the multicast packet gateway such that the multicast packet gateway is enabled to send a multicast data stream to the first and the second radio access base stations via the multicast network control node, and
• performing functions of a broadcast multicast service center (BM-SC) and a multicast coordination entity (MCE), according to an evolved multimedia broadcast multicast services (eMBMS) standard,
• wherein the multicast packet gateway is an evolved multimedia broadcast multicast services (eMBMS) gateway.