Paging Group Size Distribution for Multicast Services in 5G Networks

Group-oriented/multicast services in cellular networks are gaining momentum as the number of connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices is constantly growing. Different sensors, video cameras, robots, and general-purpose IoT devices can be organised into groups to receive services over a Point-to-Multipoint (PTM) link, thus improving the system spectral efficiency. When the group-oriented content is available in the radio access network (RAN) segment, the network sends paging messages to announce the multicast service. However, most of the battery-powered devices are not immediately available for paging and multicast services. In this work, we analyze the fundamental trade-off between paging and delay for the group-based content delivery. The impact of different paging configurations on the system performance is investigated analytically and proved by simulations.