Systems and methods are provided to establish multicast capabilities for
communication systems including wireless communication and internet
protocol (IP). An exemplary communication system may include one or more
content servers (CSs), IP network, packet data serving nodes (PDSNs), IP
radio-to-packet network (IP (RP)), base stations (BSs), and mobile
stations (MSs) all communicatively coupled together. The content servers
may provide a communication multicast on the same IP multicast address.
The PDSN to MS communications may use, for example, protocols IGMP (IPv4)
and/or MLD (IPv6) for control signaling of the IP multicasting. These
protocols may be augmented by MCFTP. The signaling may include
identifiers including the IP multicast address, a flow code that may be
generated by the PDSN, a unique mapping reference identifier, and various
radio parameters. Various signal flow approaches are presented for
establishing and maintaining multicast communication between a content
server and a mobile station.