8.9a MBMS feature support indication

23.2463GPPArchitecture and functional descriptionMultimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS)Release 17TS

An SGSN that supports MBMS shall indicate MBMS feature support to the UE during Routing Area Update procedure in the Routing Area Update Accept message and during GPRS attach procedure in the Attach Accept message. The UE then knows it can use already activated MBMS bearers, or activate new MBMS bearers according to clause 8.2 "MBMS Multicast Service Activation".

An SGSN that does not support MBMS will not indicate MBMS feature support to the UE. This indicates to the UE that MBMS bearers are no longer supported, which may allow the UE to use point-to-point bearers for MBMS data transfer. In this case, the UE shall deactivate all active MBMS UE Contexts locally.