Patent ID: 8180356

Claim:
A method for providing an indication of radio bearer information change to a User Equipment (UE) in a multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS), wherein the UE is located in a local cell and one or more other cells are adjacent to the local cell, the method comprising: acquiring, by a Base Station Controller/Radio Network Controller (BSC/RNC), radio bearer information of the local cell, and acquiring, by the BSC/RNC, radio bearer information of an adjacent cell in real time; determining whether the radio bearer information of the adjacent cell has changed relative to a prior set of radio bearer information of the adjacent cell; if the radio bearer information of the adjacent cell has changed, determining, by the BSC/RNC, whether radio bearer information of the local cell has also changed relative to a prior set of radio bearer information of the local cell; and if the radio bearer information of the local cell has not changed, selecting an operation instruction for the UE that is presented in two modes; wherein the selecting an operation instruction for a first mode comprises: (a) sending, by the BSC/RNC, service information and an operation instruction to the UE via a control channel; wherein the operation instruction instructs the UE to acquire the radio bearer information of only the adjacent cell; and issuing, by the BSC/RNC, the radio bearer information of the local cell and the changed radio bearer information of the adjacent cell to the UE, and wherein the selecting an operation instruction for a second mode comprises: (b) determining, by the BSC/RNC, which subset of the radio bearer information of the adjacent cell has changed, sending, by the BSC/RNC, service information and an operation instruction to the UE via a control channel; wherein the operation instruction instructs the UE to acquire the changed subset of the radio bearer information of the adjacent cell; and issuing, by the BSC/RNC, the radio bearer information of the local cell and the changed radio bearer information of the adjacent cell to the UE; wherein the radio bearer information of the adjacent cell is divided into two subsets: common information of the adjacent cell and uncommon information of the adjacent cell.