“5G networks are the future of content delivery in the mobile operator world”
Broadpeak, a provider of content delivery network (CDN) technologies and video streaming solutions for content providers and pay TV operators worldwide, has announced that it is actively participating in two projects supported by the European Commission to help define 5G standards.
Within this capacity, Broadpeak is currently developing caching solutions and tools for optimising resource management allocation for mobile networks, using either multicast or unicast depending on the popularity of the content. By driving technology innovation in the area of content distribution over 5G networks, Broadpeak is empowering content providers to deliver the best user experience over next-gen wireless networks.
“5G networks are the future of content delivery in the mobile operator world,” said Jacques Le Mancq, CEO, Broadpeak. “By taking a leadership role in defining 5G standards, Broadpeak continues its commitment to customers in ensuring that a superior end user experience is delivered, with the utmost scalability, bandwidth efficiency, and quality on every screen. With standardised 5G networks on the horizon, consumers can enjoy the highest quality of experience whether they are on the go, in the home, using an eMBMS device, or a regular smartphone.”
A key area Broadpeak is contributing to is helping define the role that satellite can play in 5G content delivery as part of the Satellite and Terrestrial Network for 5G (SaT5G) consortium. The goal of the SaT5G project is to deliver seamless, economically viable integration of satellite into 5G networks to ensure ubiquitous 5G access. The project also drives standardisation, mainly in 3GPP and ETSI, contributing to the definition of the 5G system and integration of satellite communications. In close collaboration with 15 consortium members, Broadpeak is involved in research, development, and validation of technologies required for plug-and-play integration of satcom elements into 5G networks, including testing and assessing these technologies through live test-bed demonstrations across Europe.
The second project involves convergence and service continuity between fixed and mobile networks. Broadpeak is part of the industry consortium 5G-Xcast (broadcast and multicast communication enablers for the fifth generation of wireless systems), which is currently working on devising, assessing, and demonstrating large-scale immersive media delivery by means of conceptually novel wireless technologies, contributing to the further definition of 5G and its standardization. The focus of 5G-Xcast is on large-scale media distribution, as this use case is one of the most demanding requirements in terms of data rate (capacity), scalability (cost-effectiveness), and ubiquity (coverage). The 5G-Xcast media delivery solution will have built-in unicast, multicast, and broadcast modes and caching capabilities.
Broadpeak’s main objective with 5G-Xcast is to drive the adaptation of its CDN solution, which currently allows content caching on fixed networks and leverages multicast capabilities of ADSL, cable, and satellite networks to the 5G mobile network. Ultimately, Broadpeak hopes to uncover the best locations inside a mobile network to cache content, determine which metrics should trigger content caching or the allocation of multicast resources in the backbone and backhaul, and examine how the streaming requests can be redirected to the most relevant caching location.