A communication system (100) provides, via a serving Node B (123), scheduling information required by a user equipment (UE) (102) to determine a start time for each Node B of multiple Node Bs (120, 123, 126) with respect to a multicast, by each Node B of the multiple Node Bs, of soft combinable MBMS data. The UE may then use the scheduling information to synchronize a soft combining of the MBMS data received by the UE via each of the multiple Node Bs, even when the multicasts via the multiple Node Bs are not synchronized. However, while the multicasts of frames of data associated with an MBMS service by different Node Bs need not be synchronized, synchronized multicasts are preferable for soft combining. Therefore, the communication system further provides for a synchronization by a network controller (130) of the multicasts of the MBMS data by the multiple Node Bs. |