Patent ID: 8477595

Claim:
In a wireless communications network comprising a plurality of Base Stations each operative to provide multicasting/broadcasting services (MBS) to mobile subscribers, a method for synchronizing the transmission of MBS data by said plurality of Base Stations comprising the steps of: (i) providing synchronization information to enable said plurality of Base Stations to start transmitting MBS data at a synchronized starting time point; at each of said plurality of Base Stations: (ii) receiving MBS data to be transmitted by said plurality of Base Stations; (iii) determining whether any of the MBS data has not been properly received, and upon determining the existence of such faulty MBS data, initiating by the respective one or more Base Stations a process to recover said faulty MBS data and/or to obtain information regarding time and/or frequency resources that would have been required for transmitting the faulty MBS data; (iv) for any of the respective one or more Base Stations that has not recovered such faulty MBS data, determining a starting point of a silence period which would precede the last data that has been properly received at the respective Base Station and the duration of said silence period based on the information obtained by said respective Base Station; (v) transmitting available MBS data, starting at the synchronized starting time point, and wherein each of said respective one or more Base Stations that has not recovered the faulty MBS data shall refrain during said silence period from transmitting signals along a communication channel allocated for transmission of MBS data.