Patent ID: 8861419

Claim:
A method for binding and unbinding a Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS) bearer to a communication group in a 3 rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) compliant system, the method comprising: an infrastructure device coupled to the 3GPP compliant system, the 3GPP compliant system having a radio access network partitioned into a plurality MBMS services areas, wherein each MBMS service area has a plurality of MBMS bearers established a priori for transporting media streams, the infrastructure device performing: receiving a request to transmit a media stream to a communication group, wherein the request to transmit is received after the MBMS bearers were established; determining a MBMS bearer of the plurality of MBMS bearers established a priori for transporting media streams in a MBMS service area of the plurality MBMS services areas to assign to transport the media stream; generating a MBMS connect message that binds the communication group to the assigned MBMS bearer, wherein the MBMS connect message includes an identifier for the communication group and an identifier for the assigned MBMS bearer; sending the MBMS connect message to members of the communication group.