Patent ID: 7623483

Claim:
A network having a controller and a base station, and providing a multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) service, the network comprising: a Radio Link Control (RLC) layer configured to receive data from an upper layer; a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer configured to add a header to the data received from the RLC layer; and a physical (PHY) layer configured to receive the header added data from the MAC layer to transmit the header added data to a plurality of terminals via a first downlink physical channel, wherein a second downlink physical channel is provided to transmit control information to the plurality of terminals, wherein the second downlink physical channel comprises a Transport Format Combination Indicator (TFCI) field and a Pilot field to transmit the control information, wherein the controller is a Controlling Radio Network Controller (CRNC) comprising the RLC layer and the MAC layer, and the base station comprises the PHY layer, wherein the MAC layer comprises a first MAC sub-layer handling a dedicated transport channel and a second MAC sub-layer handling a common or shared transport channel, and the received data is transferred directly from the RLC layer to the second MAC sub-layer, wherein the data is MBMS data, wherein the second MAC sub-layer is capable to support the MBMS service, and wherein the RLC layer operates in a non-responsive mode.