(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/LeoPatrizi)
At a recent event in London, executives from Swedish infrastructure provider Ericsson and the UK’s largest mobile operator, EE, shared their perspectives on the convergence of TV, broadband, and mobile markets and the opportunities this convergence creates for LTE broadcast.
Thorsten Sauer, Ericsson’s Head of Broadcast and Media Services, said the company forecasts that by 2020, half of all viewed content will be consumed on mobile devices and accessed on-demand. Telecom companies such as BT are preparing for this significant shift by moving toward service convergence and offering quad-play packages that bundle TV, mobile, landline, and broadband.
Consumers increasingly want more personalized TV viewing, on-demand content, and catch-up services.
BT has submitted a bid for EE’s assets. Matt Stagg, EE’s Senior Manager of Network Strategy, spoke at the event about industry trends and how EE is preparing for a substantial increase in demand for entertainment services across its network. “3G was a voice and text service with data, which provided high-speed browsing and some video,” Stagg said. “Now, with 4G, we’re talking about a video distribution network that must support communications.”
EE clearly expects video to be a dominant traffic type their network will prioritize in the coming years, a trend that would only be amplified if the BT acquisition gains regulatory approval. “The biggest fundamental shift we will see in the next decade for mobile distribution of TV is LTE broadcast. EE’s vision for LTE broadcast is that it will be better than TV,” Stagg added.
Ericsson has been actively strengthening its media capabilities. Nearly two years before this event, the vendor sought to expand its broadcast services by acquiring UK-based Red Bee Media, a transaction completed in May of the previous year. That move underscores Ericsson’s growing focus on video: the company now manages some 1.6 million media assets annually for a range of broadcasters, including the BBC, Sky, BT Sport, Canal Digital, Channel 4, and UKTV.
Ericsson predicts 50% of all content viewed will be on mobile devices and on-demand by 2020.
Despite the strong consumer interest in mobile TV and video, Ericsson’s recent studies indicate that current data caps and costs remain barriers to broader adoption. Nevertheless, demand for personalized, on-demand, and catch-up viewing continues to rise.
The principal advantage of LTE broadcast is its capacity to deliver live content simultaneously to very large audiences without the scalability problems that occur when each viewer streams individual content. Ericsson and EE see this ability as a major opportunity for delivering high-quality live and on-demand video to mobile users. How this technology and the market evolve over the next few years will be important to watch.
Do you think LTE broadcast will be better than traditional television? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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