Ericsson and KPN trialled the first live LTE broadcast last weekend during a football match held in the Netherlands.
The Sweden-based vendor said the broadcast – a football match between Ajax and NEC at the Amsterdam Arena – represented “a significant step” in the development of a technology that is set to “revolutionise” video delivery in mobile networks.
Its LTE Broadcast Solution features cutting edge standards and technologies including eMBMS (Multi-Broadcast Multicast Service), HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) and MPEG-DASH (MPEG Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over Http).
According to Ericsson, it is capable of delivering video content simultaneously to a near-limitless number of people and will allow operators to combine premium content with greater efficiency.
Qualcomm, Samsung and IBM were also partners in the trial.
Joost Steltenpool, Director of Access at KPN, commented: “Our aim was to find a solution for delivering high quality video content to large groups of people. The key for such a solution is greater network efficiency and guaranteed service quality.”
He said the operator remains “enthusiastic” about the success of the pilot and is currently exploring next steps.
Market trends suggest TV and video traffic through broadband services is set to grow 60 percent annually until 2018.
“Ericsson is in a unique position to deliver LTE Broadcast,” said Valter D’Avino, Ericsson’s Head of Region for Western and Central Europe.
“By blending insight on consumer habits, deep mobile networks expertise, twenty years of video compression technology leadership and service leadership we are able to help operators maximize the revenue opportunity represented by this rapid evolution in video consumption and user demand.”