(Image Credit: Jim Culp)
If you follow professional sports and try to watch games while on the move, you’re likely familiar with the frustration of being roughly 15 seconds behind television viewers. Despite faster and more widespread mobile data, many sports fans still rely on live radio for timely updates because streaming lag can spoil the experience.
That gap may be closing. SK Telecom and Samsung Electronics have developed a real-time mobile streaming solution over commercial LTE networks. Called True Real Time Mobile Streaming Technology, it employs the MPEG Media Transport (MMT) standard to cut latency dramatically.
Using this approach, SK Telecom and Samsung have reduced streaming delay by about 80%, bringing mobile viewers to approximately three seconds behind live broadcasts. This improvement matters increasingly as viewers use second-screen apps and social media during live events; a long delay can turn those interactions from an enhancement into a source of confusion.
The partners plan to continue research and development to boost performance and stability beyond this breakthrough. SK Telecom has indicated the service will be made commercially available in 2015 via its B TV mobile service, which delivers SD, HD, and UHD channels for users on the go.
SK Telecom recently received recognition for its progress in LTE networks, winning the “Most Significant Development of a Commercial LTE Network” award at the LTE Asia 2014 event. The honor acknowledged the operator’s aggressive development efforts and achievements in LTE-Advanced, following its launch of a 225 Mbps network the previous year.
Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of the Network Technology R&D Center at SK Telecom, commented at the time: “SK Telecom is committed to introducing even more advanced network technologies that can fortify and enhance our customers’ mobile experience.”
The operator has also been active in 5G-related research. In June, SK Telecom demonstrated 3.8 Gbps speeds using FDD-TDD carrier aggregation in collaboration with Nokia, and in July it showcased the world’s fastest LTE speeds in the 15 GHz bandwidth working with Ericsson.
What do you think about this new real-time streaming technology? Let us know in the comments.