IGMP extentions for mobile multimedia services

Mobile access networks are being developed to support various multimedia services such as IPTV (Internet Protocol Television), VoD (Video on Demand), and high speed internet services. Especially, these networks are a point-to-multipoint method in which one MAG (Mobile Access Gateway) and many MNs (Mobile Node) are connected. In other words, if a mobile multimedia viewer is joining a specific multicast group over mobile access networks, the others receive the multimedia program at the same time although they do not belong to the same multicast group. However, the traditional IGMP versions do not allow immediate multimedia program sharing as explained about. Also, in traditional IGMP versions, a viewer always needs to send IGMP join report. This paper proposes IGMP extensions which improves group join and leave process in mobile access networks for multimedia services.