A radio access network (230) facilitates transmission of a Multimedia
Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS) to user equipments (160) in plural
cells served by a radio base station (250). A radio network controller
(240) includes in a first message of a transport channel setup request
either an indication that transport sharing is allowed or an
identification of a common transport bearer (245). The radio base station
(240) configures a new transport channel mapped to the common transport
bearer (245) such that it is stable with respect to other common
transport channels (255). During operation, the radio network controller
(240) provides the MBMS data over the common transport bearer (245) and
the radio base station (250) retransmits the MBMS data over the common
transport channels (255) to the plural cells. If the MBMS data over the
common transport bearer (245) arrives outside of time-of-arrival windows
of any common transport bearer (255), then the radio network controller
(240) adjusts the transmission accordingly.