International. Sporting events have traditionally been the stages to test and launch the different developments of the broadcast industry. The most recent is the 5G broadcast tests carried out by the company Rohde & Schwarz.
This time it was in the framework of the Tour de France, one of the most important cycling events in the international arena. Rohde & Schwarz played a prominent role in the public demonstration of the latest in mobile content delivery: 5G Broadcast. The presentation was given by Danish broadcasters DR and TV2, with special mobile devices provided by Qualcomm.
This year, the first three days of the event were held in Denmark, starting with a time trial in the capital, Copenhagen, on July 1. Host broadcaster TV2, which seeks to increase audience engagement, offered specially crafted content in 5G Broadcast, a new standard for content delivery.
It has a wide range of applications including localized streaming, public safety, and IoT delivery. The advantage is that the content was not transmitted over a large number of one-to-one connections, but was transmitted to devices that don't even need a SIM card to receive it, which eliminated network congestion and allowed broadcasters to retain streaming rights.
For the TV2/DR demonstration, the transmission used a Rohde & Schwarz TMU9evo medium power UHF transmitter installed in Copenhagen for the project. The content was prepared by TV2 as part of the productions of its host stations. Viewers watched the low-latency live streams on smartphone-like devices from Qualcomm Technologies.
"5G streaming is an exciting new way for consumers to connect to live video streams wherever they are, adding to the experience and engagement of events like the Tour de France," said Manfred Reitmeier, vice president of streaming and amplification systems at Rohde & Schwarz. "This was part of an ongoing program of demonstrations in partnership with Qualcomm to showcase what this technology can offer, and we are grateful for DR and TV2's involvement."
5G Broadcast is an open standard, based on the 3GPP Release 16 feature set. It offers network operators and broadcasters opportunities to create new consumer experiences, including emerging services around music and sporting events such as the Tour de France. Free high-power, high-tower services also have great potential for public information and security messages.
It's not limited to live and linear video distribution: it offers a whole new range of business models for delivering content or data to a large number of receivers without affecting the normal 5G cellular mobile network. These include the distribution of IoT data, such as up-to-date maps or traffic information for autonomous vehicles and GPS receivers.
