Multicast service
View Patent ↗A method including sending a multicast packet to a cluster of recipients; receiving information indicating receiving status relating to the multicast packet from individual members of the cluster of recipients; and initiating intracluster retransmission of said multicast packet by sending to the cluster of recipients collective information about the receiving statuses of the members of the cluster of recipients.
1. A method comprising:
obtaining, by a user equipment, information defining acknowledgement feedback resources for a cluster;
receiving, by the user equipment, a multicasted packet from a multicast transmitter;
determining, by the user equipment, reception status for the packet;
responsive to the reception status being positive, transmitting, by the user equipment, in a positive acknowledgement phase of a cluster, a positive acknowledgement to the multicast transmitter and listening, by the user equipment, to negative acknowledgements directly from cluster members, in a negative acknowledgement phase of the cluster;
responsive to the reception status being negative, transmitting, by the user equipment, in a negative acknowledgement phase of the cluster, a negative acknowledgement to the multicast transmitter and listening, by the user equipment, to positive acknowledgements directly from cluster members, in a positive acknowledgement phase of the cluster; and
determining, by the user equipment, whether to perform an intra-cluster retransmission of the received packet based on the listened to acknowledgement information transmitted by the cluster members.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the positive acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement comprises an indication concerning a transmission power used.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining whether to perform the intra-cluster retransmission is done at least in part responsive to a message from the multicast transmitter.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining whether to perform the intra-cluster retransmission is done at least in part responsive to a number of negative acknowledgements obtained during the negative acknowledgement phase of the cluster.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining whether to perform the intra-cluster retransmission is done at least in part responsive to at least one power condition in the cluster.
6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the at least one power condition is obtained from acknowledgements received from cluster members.
7. An apparatus comprising:
at least one processor; and
at least one memory including computer program code;
the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to:
obtain, by a user equipment, information defining acknowledgement feedback resources for a cluster;
receive, by the user equipment, a multicasted packet from a multicast transmitter;
determine, by the user equipment, reception status for the packet;
responsive to the reception status being positive, transmit, by the user equipment, in a positive acknowledgement phase of a cluster, a positive acknowledgement to the multicast transmitter and listen, by the user equipment, to negative acknowledgements directly from cluster members, in a negative acknowledgement phase of the cluster;
responsive to the reception status being negative, transmit, by the user equipment, in a negative acknowledgement phase of the cluster, a negative acknowledgement to the multicast transmitter and listen, by the user equipment, to positive acknowledgements directly from cluster members, in a positive acknowledgement phase of the cluster; and
determine, by the user equipment, whether to perform an intra-cluster retransmission of the received packet based on the listened to acknowledgement information transmitted by the cluster members.
8. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein the positive acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement comprises an indication concerning a transmission power used.
9. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein the determining whether to perform the intra-cluster retransmission is done at least in part responsive to a message from the multicast transmitter.
10. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the determining whether to perform the intra-cluster retransmission is done at least in part responsive to a number of negative acknowledgements obtained during the negative acknowledgement phase of the cluster.
11. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the determining whether to perform the intra-cluster retransmission is done at least in part responsive to at least one power condition in the cluster.
12. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the at least one power condition is obtained from acknowledgements received from cluster members.
13. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including computer program code which, when executed by at least one processor causes operations comprising:
obtaining, by a user equipment, information defining acknowledgement feedback resources for a cluster;
receiving, by the user equipment, a multicasted packet from a multicast transmitter;
determining, by the user equipment, reception status for the packet;
responsive to the reception status being positive, transmitting, by the user equipment, in a positive acknowledgement phase of a cluster, a positive acknowledgement to the multicast transmitter and listening, by the user equipment, to negative acknowledgements directly from cluster members, in a negative acknowledgement phase of the cluster;
responsive to the reception status being negative, transmitting, by the user equipment, in a negative acknowledgement phase of the cluster, a negative acknowledgement to the multicast transmitter and listening, by the user equipment, to positive acknowledgements directly from cluster members, in a positive acknowledgement phase of the cluster; and
determining, by the user equipment, whether to perform an intra-cluster retransmission of the received packet based on the listened to acknowledgement information transmitted by the cluster members.
14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the listened to acknowledgement information is a retransmission priority of each user equipment.
15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the listened to acknowledgement information includes at least one of: a resource block, a packet size, a retransmission priority of each user equipment, a quality of links between the user equipment, or a power condition of the user equipment.