A new report published by the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), reveals how evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) enabled LTE Broadcast (also known as LTE Multicast) is attracting the attention of network operators and suppliers worldwide.
This first issue of the LTE Broadcast (LTE Multicast) market status report confirms that at least 16 mobile network operators, working together with LTE systems providers and broadcast content owners, are currently deploying or trialling LTE Broadcast technology in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, UAE, UK and the U.S.
The market status report provides an overview brief of the technology with use cases, confirms the availability of eMBMS-enabled smartphone devices, references LTE Broadcast activities by network operators globally, and includes links for further reading and discussion.
LTE Broadcast is one of the key new features of 3GPP LTE Release 9 specifications known as evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service, which supports all specified bandwidths and formats of LTE, including FDD and TDD modes and LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation. The first LTE Broadcast service was commercially launched by KT in South Korea in January 2014.
Alan Hadden, president of GSA, said: “LTE Broadcast technology enables innovative and profitable business opportunities for mobile network operators. The report lists several use cases, which is constantly expanding, and new business models will evolve.”
Owing to the popularity of smartphones and tablets, mobile data traffic on networks is rapidly growing, driven mainly by video. In 2013 video accounted for about 40 percent of mobile data traffic, and various forecasts suggest a rise to 66 to 70 percent by 2017. By using LTE Broadcast enabled by evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) technology, operators can manage network assets more efficiently by multicasting popular content sought by multiple subscribers, e.g., live TV broadcasts or tailored content for sporting events in stadiums or other venues. Operators can utilise off-peak capacity to deliver new service offerings, which could include rich media caching, or managed software updates including applications updates.