MBMS soft combining

1. A method of conducting soft combining of at least two received MBMS signals in a user equipment of a radio telecommunications network, the method including:

demodulating, by a device of the user equipment the at least two received MBMS signals;

converting floating-point slot data vectors to fixed-point slot data vectors for the at least two demodulated received MBMS signals; and

soft combining the fixed-point slot data vectors derived from the at least two demodulated received MBMS signals,

wherein the step of soft combining the fixed-point data vectors includes the step of:

(a) combining a first fixed-point MBMS data vector with a second fixed-point MBMS data vector on a slot-by-slot basis, to generate combined fixed-point MBMS data vectors,

wherein step (a) further includes the steps of:

(1) buffering the first fixed-point MBMS data vector;

(2) buffering the second fixed-point MBMS data vector; and

(3) combining the buffered first and second fixed-point MBMS data vectors to produce a combined fixed-point MBMS data vector,

wherein the method further includes scaling the buffered first and second fixed-point MBMS data vectors prior to combining them,

wherein in the case that more than two MBMS data vectors are to be combined the method further includes generating a scaling factor relating to the combined fixed-point MBMS data vector,

wherein the method further includes:

for each MBMS signal to be soft combined, performing a floating-point to fixed-point conversion of a data stream on a slot-by-slot basis;

predicting a slot scaling factor for a current slot on a basis of a proceeding slot; and

using the predicted slot scaling factor to perform the floating-point to fixed-point conversion of the data stream for each slot,

wherein the predicted slot scaling factor is generated on a basis of a previously converted slot.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein in the event that more than two MBMS signals are to be combined, step (a) is repeated using the previously generated combined fixed-point MBMS data vector as the first fixed-point MBMS data vector to generate a subsequent combined fixed-point MBMS data vector.

3. A method of receiving an MBMS service in a user equipment of a radio telecommunications network, the method including soft combining of at least two MBMS signals in accordance with the method of claim 1 .

4. A user equipment configured to soft combine at least two MBMS signals in accordance with the method of claim 1 .