The consumption of mobile video content is rapidly increasing. But there are limitations in covering this demand and fulfilling mobile subscriber’s quality of experience (QoE) expectations via the current mobile network structure. To address this and enable new business models, a global initiative – the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) – has defined major standard enhancements with the enabling FeMBMS technology in Release 14. For the first time, a 3GPP standard allows high power high tower (HPHT) applications in downlink only mode while utilizing the full signal bandwidth for multicast/broadcast applications.
This new standard evolution enables enhancement of today’s cellular network topologies by deploying an HPHT overlay network with a more than 60 km cell radius in order to achieve better and wider coverage for media delivery. This enables a highly cost-efficient network topology for both urban and rural areas. Mobile consumers of premium content services such as live sports events will benefit from highest video quality beyond HDTV, low latency and ensured availability of live streaming services.
At MWC 2019, Rohde & Schwarz will showcase a solution for future mobile media delivery and demonstrate the world’s first end-to-end solution for LTE/5G Broadcast that is fully compliant with 3GPP Release 14. Live at its booth, the company will demonstrate the advantages of this technology via live transmission to a smartphone.
Rohde & Schwarz is a part of the Bavarian research project ‘5G TODAY’. Together with project partners Institute for Broadcast Technology (IRT) and Kathrein, Rohde & Schwarz is investigating large-scale TV broadcasts in FeMBMS mode in the world’s first HPHT 5G Broadcast field trial in Munich. The project is supported by Telefónica Germany and Bayerischer Rundfunk, the Bavarian public broadcaster who is providing two high power high tower sites to cover all of Munich and the surrounding countryside for this ground-breaking field trial.
