IBC
The
potential for 5G to revolutionise the media and entertainment industries is now
being tested by sports producers and broadcasters.
A
critical milestone on the road to 5G was achieved last month - official
approval of standalone specifications by international telecoms standards
organisation 3GPP.
Effectively,
the agreement means the industry is now in the final leg of the race to roll
out 5G commercially, allowing broadband-equivalent download speeds over mobile
networks.
Underscoring
the mobile industry’s excitement about the huge revenue generating potential of
this fifth and final generation cellular network (so good is 5G there won’t be
a 6G), 3GPP chair Georg Mayer said: “Two years ago, 5G was seen as a vision or
even just a hype — with the closing of [the new specification] 3GPP has made 5G
a reality within a very short time.”
The
agreed specifications allow chip, device and network developers to launch 5G
products which are not tied to legacy 4G technologies.
They
will provide a platform for the launch of 5G networks, which in turn is
expected to drive the take up of the cellular Internet of Things [IoT].
Nokia’s
EVP and Head of Business Area Networks Fredrik Jejdling believes the technology
promises “new capabilities that will impact people’s lives and transform
industries.”
That’s
because 5G networks will be able to handle more data and connect more devices
simultaneously and do this all at much faster speeds than is possible using
existing technology.
5G
will connect the Internet of Things, help to transform cities into smart cities
and drive new modes of industry, sometimes breathlessly dubbed the fourth
industrial revolution.
The
technology will also play a pivotal role in delivering new immersive media
applications, like ubiquitous UHD HDR streams and virtual reality.
Coming to a live event near you
The first impact
of 5G in the broadcast industry is likely to be felt in live events.
The
latest demonstration of its potential was during the World Cup, in a match
between Morocco and Iran. Feeds from cameras at St Petersburg’s Kresovsky
Stadium were routed 600 km over a 5G connection to Moscow. There, viewers in a
designated ‘5G zone’, were able to watch the game in VR, switching between
camera angles on the fly.
The
5G platform has long been touted as a potential key link in the 4K video
delivery chain thanks to its multi-gigabit speeds and latencies as low as a
millisecond.
Fox
Sports put this to the test for camera contribution during last week’s U.S.
Open Championship, in a collaboration with Fox Innovation Labs, Intel,
Ericsson, and AT&T. Ericsson provided the 5G radios, baseband and 4K video
encoder and decoder; Intel supplied its 5G Mobile Trial Platform, a device
capable of transmitting 1.6 Gbps and 5G to IP translation, while AT&T set
up a temporary network connection to deliver the 4K shots from the seventh
hole.
An
earlier proof of concept was made at the Winter Olympics in South Korea, in
February. 4K cameras were fitted to the front of Olympic bobsleighs to offer a
bullet’s eye view which was cut into the live production (output in HD). The
Olympic broadcasting organisation expressed keen interest in exploring the use
of 5G further with a view to eventually replacing traditional contribution
solutions over RF.
These
limited trials are just the beginning. It won’t be long before coverage of an
entire tournament is routed over 5G to be remotely produced.
While
broadcasters can use the existing 4G mobile network to contribute live signals
today (mainly for store and forward), the bandwidth tends to be congested and
the signal interrupted. By contrast, 5G provides a guaranteed bit rate and
latency.
“The
ability to perform network slicing with 5G means that wireless contribution
becomes a viable reality,” explains BT Director of Mobile Strategy Matt Stagg.
“It means we can look at replacing the satellite truck with 5G connectivity and
move all production back to a central hub. This has massive operational cost
savings.”
Stagg’s
vision for a commercial 5G sports production product is one where a producer
could decide how much bandwidth and latency they needed at a certain time,
duration and location.
“We
are a very long way away from that happening but that’s the current model for
satellite or fibre booking and one that 5G will replace,” he asserts. “With 5G,
everything can be done remotely using 5G cameras. 5G guarantees broadcast grade
delivery.”
He
says BT Sport is looking at what 5G can do for its own sports coverage, its
wider media and broadcasting business and what it could mean for other
broadcasters. It has “glass to glass” tests in the works.
ITN
Chief Technology Officer Bevan Gibson agrees with 5G’s potential.
“Network
segmentation and the ability to lock bandwidth down to a particular user will
be much more common place as we get into ultra-local and ultra-high speed
networks. You will be able to carve off a gig or two for particular use. So, a
broadcaster at a stadium could access a slice of the network and wouldn’t have
to put in costly infrastructure.”
Weighing up risks
However, Gibson
is more cautious in recommending the technology’s immediate benefits.
“It
may be fine for Tier 2 sports where 5G could make coverage more cost-effective
than before but for world class events my concern would be network contention,”
he says. “If 5G connects hundreds of thousands of other objects from phones to
gas metres will the bit of spectrum you have allocated work? Rights holders and
producers would want certainty.”
Gibson
believes 5G could be of more use in the short term for broadcasting from
unplanned events, such as a natural disaster or a terror incident.
Likewise,
production company Sunset + Vine - one of whose main clients is BT Sport - is
less gung-ho than some about 5G’s contribution for top end sports distribution.
“Certainly,
5G would provide a less expensive back-up path [than fibre/satellite] but I
wouldn’t be comfortable relying on it as the only contribution circuit for the
main programme feed,” says Sunset + Vine Director of Technical Operations Mark
Dennis.
“When
clients have paid so much to cover a job then reliance on a product you don’t
have 100% control over would be a worry.
“That
said, 5G does open up massive possibilities for sports contracts where budgets
are very restrictive. It also offers tremendous flexibility for access. Instead
of putting in an expensive RF infrastructure you could put in a 5G backpack and
broadcast anywhere.”
Manufacturers
like LiveU and Teradek will be racing to bring out the first bonded cellular 5G
live streaming solution.
Dennis
adds: “Instead of the delay you have now using cellular links, you could do
live two-ways from the team hotel, in the dressing room - anywhere in the world
there’s a 5G connection. It will be a massive bonus for getting more colour and
more stories from major events.”
Smart stadiums
We’ve all
suffered from the inability to access the internet in a crowded environment
such as a mass spectator event when the network is being drained by dozens of
other people trying to do the same thing.
5G
to the rescue. Nokia estimates that 5G can provide up to 40 times more capacity
in a stadium than even 4.5G - opening up opportunities for fans, stadiums and
service providers alike.
A
pop concert for 18,000 spectators at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai last
February was streamed live in HD to users at the venue using a mobile app on
their device, cutting latency to just 0.5 seconds. Technology from Nokia and
Intel enabled the video to be stored locally and routed straight to attendees
instead of traveling across the backhaul network.
“5G
will open up multi-platform second screen experiences in the stadia,” says
Dennis. “If you can get Diva [the interactive live sports streaming platform
from Deltatre] working on 40,000 smartphones in a ground it will make VAR
[video assistant refereeing) very interesting indeed because everyone would
have access to multiple angles of a key incident.”
Another
5G trial, this time with Japanese telco KDDI and Samsung, streamed 4K video of
a baseball game live to fans on 5G tablets in the Okinawa Cellular Stadium.
Each video provided different angles of baseball play, athlete statistics and
ballpark information.
Samsung
considered the trial “a leap forward in content delivery”, offering
“high-speed, high-quality content that can be viewed by many people
simultaneously, in a crowded and dense venue.”
An
earlier test made by Verizon at a baseball game in Minneapolis invited
customers to view stereoscopic video feeds on untethered VR goggles.
This
is a flavour of the experience that visitors to London’s O2 arena can expect
when a 5G network opens there later this year. The network will initially be in
a couple of locations, including the exclusive O2 blueroom and the venue’s
store, before extending coverage across the venue by the end of 2020.
Meanwhile,
BT has partnered with Nokia and Qualcomm to explore how 5G can be used to
improve the streaming of sports events. The idea is to take feeds from 4K
cameras at a stadium, couple them with a 5G modem and use 5G to send the camera
feeds to a centralised mixing facility. The resulting mix could then be sent
back to spectators in the ground – or wider afield to users at home.
BT
is working to trial this scenario at various events in the UK right now.
One billion 5G connections in five
years
North America
will lead the global 5G charge, with all major US operators planning to roll 5G
out between late 2018 and mid-2019, according to Ericsson’s latest Mobility
Report.
Carriers
AT&T and Verizon will have deployed in five U.S cities each by the end of
2018. Sprint, currently negotiating a $26.5 billion merger with T-Mobile, is
playing catch-up.
By
end of 2023, close to 50% of all mobile subscriptions in North America are
forecast to be for 5G, followed by North East Asia at 34%, and Western Europe
at 21%.
Europe
lags behind although in October, BT-owned mobile operator EE will switch on
what it claims to be the UK’s first live 5G network, in London’s Tech City. It
will only be a trial.
Globally,
Ericsson forecasts over one billion 5G subscriptions by the end of 2023,
accounting for around 12% of all mobile subscriptions and accounting for more
than 20% of mobile data traffic worldwide.
As
with previous mobile access technologies, 5G is expected to be deployed first
in dense urban areas with enhanced mobile broadband and fixed wireless access
as the first commercial use cases. Other use cases will come from industries
such as automotive, manufacturing, utilities, and healthcare.
First-generation,
5G data-only devices are expected later this year. The first commercial
smartphones supporting 5G are expected early next year, while support for very
high spectrum bands is expected in early to mid-2019.
Intel
and Qualcomm are racing to put 5G chips into handsets, laptops and PCs. Intel
for instance has a deal with Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus, Acer and Microsoft to put
its 5G modems inside a range of notebook PCs.
From eSports to holography
With Telstra and
Ericsson, Intel recently conducted one of the world’s first eSports
professional gaming experiences over a live 5G connection on Australia’s Gold
Coast.
On
a 5G network, latency is considered ‘ultra-low’ at six milliseconds, compared
to 20 milliseconds on 4G. This is a crucial reduction in lag for eSports, where
tiny delays in responsiveness between pressing a button and getting a result
can affect who wins.
Mobile
carriers like Telstra believe the combination of 5G and eSports will be a key
driver for generating revenue from the 250 million eSports enthusiasts expected
to be playing worldwide by 2021.
“Applications
today are capped by 4G speeds but the world of 5G opens everything up,” says
Dennis. “We are trialing the use of 360-cameras to put fans right in the middle
of the action.”
Formula
1, for example, has trialed 360-cameras on board racecars and in the driver’s
cockpit, allowing viewers to switch between angles.
While
interactive 360- streamed video and superfast 4K downloads are often touted as
the main new media applications, BT Sport wants to look beyond this.
“If
you are going to do immersive media then don’t do the same as before only
slightly better,” says Stagg. “There are elements to 5G that enables us to do
things we cannot have done before. Things we may not yet have thought of.”
Begin
able to augment the big screen experience with replays of action with six
degrees of movement is one example. “We want to put ourselves in the position
of a fan unable to attend the game. What would they want to see? How close to
the actual game can we get them?”
Stagg
says holography is “a perfect example” of the applications BT Sport wants to
explore.
“The
baseline is a live event streamed to mobile in HD 1080p 60. That’s the very
least our customers will expect. Beyond that anything is possible.”
