5G Multicast Broadcast Services: Performance Overview and Future Extensions

This paper presents an extensive evaluation of 5G Multicast Broadcast Services (5MBS) services framework standardized by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) in terms of standardization, performance evaluation, deployment feasibility, and physical layer enhancements. Unlike traditional Point-to-Point (PtP) communications, 5MBS enables efficient Point-to-Multipoint (PtM) transmission to multiple User Equipment (UE)s, supporting both unicast and group-based delivery. We assess three delivery modes, unicast under Close Loop Spacial Multiplexing (CLSM), multicast under Open Loop Spacial Multiplexing (OLSM), and broadcast (Single Input Single Output (SISO)) across rural, urban, and vehicular scenarios using the Vienna System Level Simulator (SLS). Our results show that multicast strikes a performance balance under medium user densities, while broadcast ensures minimum coverage guarantees in high-load or mobility-critical situations. Additionally, we demonstrate that incorporating Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) configurations into 5G broadcast significantly improves Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (SINR) and user throughput at the 5th percentile, thus covering 95% coverage, with MIMO <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$4\times 4$</tex-math> </inline-formula> achieving up to 0.7 Mbps gains and 5.5 dB improvements over SISO. These findings highlight the suitability of 5MBS for scalable, reliable content delivery, and underline the importance of adaptive delivery strategies based on traffic density, mobility, and deployment environment. The insights derived offer practical guidelines for efficient use of multicast and broadcast in next-generation 5G networks.