The trend among consumers is shifting from conventional “linear” television watched at home to mobile on-demand videos. In other words, movies and news reports are increasingly being consumed on the go. This is imposing significant additional loads on mobile communications networks, and cell sites can only support a limited number of recipients.
A downlink-only mode integrated into a mobile network can support an unlimited number of recipients, however. A new technology called the “Further Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service” (FeMBMS) now makes it possible to tap the full potential of this approach by implementing it within the scope of 5G Broadcast. As a result, mobile communications are now gaining entirely new applications. They include, for example, distributing live content to an unlimited number of mobile recipients with low latency times or to onboard infotainment systems in cars.
5G Broadcast has noticeably gained momentum over the last couple of years. The number of demo networks run by operators of broadcasting and mobile communications networks is increasing worldwide, and standardization efforts are also making headway with 3GPP Release 16, which opens up many new possibilities beyond conventional mobile broadband services. It is also improving the situation for single-frequency networks (SFNs). For future releases, the possibility is being considered of adding the typical broadcasting bandwidths of 6, 7, and 8 MHz to the standard.
5G Broadcast is a major opportunity for SPINNER to work with other stakeholders in interpreting the 5G Broadcast standard and integrating it in networks and devices. Our mask filters and combiners, which now already support typical bandwidths for broadcasting and mobile communications such as 5, 10, and 15 MHz, make us an excellent partner for building overlay high-power, high-tower networks. In particular, our many years of experience as an infrastructure supplier for broadcasting and mobile communications applications make us a competent source of expertise for planning customized 5G Broadcast networks.
