5G Mixed Mode: An Innovative Point-to-Multipoint Solution for New Radio

This work presents a potential solution for enabling the use of multicast in the 3GPP Release 15 air interface, called 5G New Radio (NR). The proposed multicast mode, denoted as 5G Mixed Mode follows one of the two approaches envisaged in 3GPP, which enables a dynamic and seamless switching between unicast and multicast, both in the downlink and the uplink. This paper also provides a performance evaluation in Single Frequency Networks (SFN) and mobility scenarios, showcasing the potential advantages of this solution over unicast in relevant scenarios.