TVB Europe
After
a decade of false starts, broadcasting to mobile is back on the
agenda as momentum builds behind LTE Broadcast or eMBMS (evolved
Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service). While the technology
continues to be tested by mobile operators, the impediment to success
would appear to be finding a business case.
The
main driver from the mobile industry's point of view is conservation
of the 4G spectrum which operators collectively paid £2.4 billion
for and which is being rapidly consumed by demand for video. Ericsson
predicts mobile
data traffic to grow 12 times from 2013 by the end of 2018 driven
mainly by video.
Currently,
where there is high demand for a particular video service, whether
live sports stream or a viral video, the one to one (unicast) mobile
network is tasked to deliver multiple parallel sessions to users.
This can build congestion, cause poor user experience (e.g buffering
or loss of the stream) and is an inefficient use of network
resources.
By
broadcasting a single stream to multiple handsets, LTE Broadcast
promises an unlimited number of users can receive content with a
high-quality user experience and a more efficient use of spectrum. It
does so by effectively allocating a single frequency within a base
station, which is then repeated in other base stations. This could be
over a small area like a sport stadium, or part of a city (like
London's Tech City), city-wide, regional or national.
Deployment
is relatively straightforward, requiring a software upgrade to the
cell sites rather than network-wide upheaval. Smartphones fitted with
the required chip (from chip makers like Qualcomm) will be mass
marketed by end of the year.
The
technology is a combination of three standards. eMBMS the 3GPP
standard; HEVC which delivers compression levels up to twice compared
to the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard; and MPEG DASH - Dynamic Adaptive
Streaming over HTTP – which brings standardisation to an area full
of proprietary interfaces.
It
builds
off of the 4G network extensively covered in the UK by EE (BT), O2,
Vodafone and Three. Operators are now
competing to rollout LTE Broadcast which is expected to be ubiquitous
by the start of 2016. All that is needed to switch it on, for initial
short-term, localised use, is a commercial model.
To
date, most LTE Broadcast trials have been in around sports stadia
where there is believed to be a business case for easing congested
mobile networks in crowded and compact areas.
“Where
are there are more than six people in a cell site accessing HD video
it becomes a problem from a capacity perspective so broadcast will
offer a more efficient delivery,” said Mark
SVP,
Global Sales at QuickPlay. “We
see this being monetised by large operators with content rights as
pay for use or by advertising that drives a free application.”
EE,
for example, is lead sponsor at Wembley Stadium and is using events
there to test technologies including LTE Broadcast. “You could live
stream a game over LTE and offer, for example, bespoke fan
commentary, multiple replays, camera angles, and all manner of other
interactivity via unicast,” explains Matt
Stagg, senior manager, network strategy, EE.
Clubs
and sports venue operators are adopting a wait and see approach,
while business cases are not nailed down. Rights holders probably
hold the keys here in tandem with mobile operators. For example, live
streams of EPL and Football League matches to the mobile devices of
fans inside a football ground are restricted under the current
broadcast contracts owned by BT and Sky. There may be a case for
using LTE Broadcast in and around Wimbledon during the annual tennis
tournament but this would probably need to be free to users since the
BBC owns broadcast rights.
The
BBC itself trialled the tech at the Commonwealth Games last July. A
mobile app written by BBC R&D was used to display and navigate
three live streams on handsets. The
app featured a map of the events and locations around Glasgow which
lit up in green when a live stream was available. Users could click
on the venue and receive the video. This
was also connected to BBC iPlayer to enable the integration of
unicast on-demand content with the live broadcast streams.
“We
hedged our bets by testing a sports-specific event and also the idea
that this technology could be rolled out into a mobile network
wherever the user happened to be,” explains Chris
Nokes, principal engineer - distribution core technologies, BBC R&D.
“Our
interest is for people to have the best possible experience wherever
they watch BBC content,” he continues. “To the extent that LTE
Broadcast can help provide an improved experience it is interesting
and important but it is not vital.”
Since
LTE Broadcast has the ability to deliver any kind and size of file,
video is not the only selling point. Over the air firmware updates,
Machine 2 Machine, digital signage, in-car TV PPV events, marketing
campaigns, auctioning of time slots are other examples. Data plans
are currently predicated on counting IP packets delivered to your
mobile phone. Having a different - reduced or free - model for
multicast packets could drive adoption of services based on LTE
Broadcast.
“File
delivery is the unsung hero,” says Kerry
Travilla, senior director technology at mobile service provider
MobiTV. “In
order to create an engaging app you need to have data such as
realtime score updates, Twitter feeds and breaking news sent
alongside the live stream and the mechanism to do that is the file
delivery portion of LTE Broadcast. It also keeps the app from trying
to access that interactive content over unicast. If that happened it
would make the network inefficient.”
Secondly,
says Travilla, any place there's a need for large scale distribution
of content – then LTE Broadcast is ideal “since you can hit
millions of handsets in one swoop rather than having a million
individual requests by HTTP.”
Longer
term, there are those who argue that the needs of public service
broadcasters and of the mobile industry could co-exist with judicious
use of this portion of the spectrum to reach the growing audience
wanting to consume content on mobiles.
The
EBU dismissed this last year, stating that LTE Broadcast was not yet
ready to deliver widespread TV services free-to-air. While the new
mobile technology could be a useful complement to the broadcast
distribution platform, it concluded, it was unrealistic to expect it
to become a viable alternative to broadcast distribution, including
DTT, anytime soon.
Yet,
its report preceded the start of a world first trial of TV
broadcasting led by Nokia and
research body Institut für Rundfunktechnik.
The 18-month trial uses a single LTE frequency within the UHF
spectrum and is being conducted in a 200
km2 area
around Munich until early 2016.
“We
strongly believe nationwide broadcast is a relevant use case and has
the potential to change the business models in the media industry,”
said Helmut Schink, head of telco standards, Nokia Networks.
“So
far the industry is talking about the digital dividend with mobile
and TV industry framing this as a fight because of the perceived need
to give some spectrum resources away. We think LTE eMBMS
is sufficiently flexible that broadcasters can continue with their
business model without need to have specifically allocated spectrum.”
“LTE
Broadcast is definitely ready for primetime,” declares Dennis
Specht, CEO and co-founder of Roundbox, recently acquired by mobile
solutions provider QuickPlay Media.
“It changes the game for TV in some areas. In APAC, for example, we
are seeing LTE Broadcast being leveraged as a cable replacement. You
can offer 12 channels for $7 a month over mobile.”
To
5G infinity and hologram Skype
5G,
the successor to 4G, is already being investigated. It would deliver
speeds of 50 Gbp/s running on spectrum above 6GHz, a high frequency
which is currently used for weather monitoring, scientific
research
and satellite broadcasts. This
would represent a 3,000 fold increase in speeds according to the
Financial Times. According
to regulator Ofcom,
4G customers in the UK today receives data at an average 15Mbit/s.
Research
in the UK is led by the 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) at the University
of Surrey, funded with £15m of government cash plus £45m in
contributions from Samsung, EE, Vodafone, Telefonica, Fujitsu and
Huawei. Video over wireless specialists Cobham and the BBC are also
members.
Due
to open its doors this September, the 5GIC is part of the
University’s Institute for Communication Systems (ICS) which made a
major contribution towards the development of 2G technology in the
1990s, 3G in the 2000s and 4G since 2010.
“If
we get 5G right there won't be a 6G,” says EE's Stagg. “People
won't talk about speed because there will be enough capacity in the
network for millions - billions - of devices connected to the
Internet of Things. It will be incredibly low latency and a totally
different architecture with a lot of computing done on the cell site.
It means you can start to look at all manner of applications such as
driverless cars.”
According
to Ofcom, 5G would allow surgeons to oversee operations from the
other side of the world using 3D medical imaging, or for families to
“virtually
attend family occasions” with holographic video.
There
is currently fragmentation in 5G development, a lot of work to be
done and there are no standards. Operators are jockeying for position
with 2020 the earliest timeframe for introduction.
Ofcom
hopes that the UK becomes a leader in laying the foundations of 5G.
It states that 5G must represent a step beyond anything offered by 4G
in speeds and in giving users the “impression of infinite
capacity”.
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