Huawei announced EE, the BBC, Qualcomm Technologies and Huawei are collaborating in to exploring the role that 4G can play in the future of broadcasting. According to Huawei, the trial technology, which will be demonstrated on a dedicated stand at the BBC R&D Future of Broadcasting Showcase in the Glasgow Science Centre from 24 July to 3 August, is designed to help deliver high-quality, uninterrupted live streaming to mobile devices, with no buffering.

Live BBC content will be streamed using eMBMS (Evolved Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Service), the broadcast mode of LTE. Those attending the showcase in Glasgow will be able to watch the footage on their mobile devices via 4G broadcast. Huawei is providing the network equipment, running over the EE network, with Qualcomm Technologies supplying Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ processors with broadcast middleware and an associated SDK (software development kit) for application development. The goal is to demonstrate the benefits that multicast 4G broadcast can offer compared with unicast steaming.

eMBMS, a broadcast/multicast technology, gives mobile network operators a more efficient and cost-effective means of sending popular content to a large number of customers simultaneously over an existing 4G/LTE network. It is designed to does not require additional frequency spectrum, as it flexibly shares the same spectrum with content delivery to individual (unicast) users in the network as required. 

The live content for the trial is in MPEG-DASH format provided by the BBC, sent over an IP link to a Huawei server situated within the EE test labs. The content is then encapsulated within multicast and sent to base stations (eNodeBs), one of which is situated within the showcase at the Glasgow Science Centre where it is transmitted on 2.6 GHz spectrum. An application written by BBC R&D, supported by Qualcomm Technologies’ 4G Broadcast solution comprising of optimized LTE Broadcast middleware and a Snapdragon 800 processor with an integrated Qualcomm® Gobi™ modem by Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., is then used to display and navigate the live streams on handsets.