LTE Satisfies Appetite for Mobile Video
From cultural phenomenon to mainstream media.
Individuals increasingly have an insatiable appetite for video and mobile users are no different. Thanks to flat-rate 3G data tariffs, they are watching YouTube, movies, clips and anything else they can get their hands on at a rate that is astonishing to mobile operators.
“Most carriers that I talk to are trying to keep up with the traffic. Everyone’s way of watching TV is changing. People are less interested in basic broadcast TV and more interested in streaming video from the Internet. The world is changing from prime time to my time,” said Paul Steinberg, chief architect with Motorola.
Indeed, Internet video sensation YouTube recently revealed that mobile video is an “exponentially” growing part of its site. In June, it reported that over a six-month period, uploads from mobile phones to YouTube have increased 1,700 percent thanks to the proliferation of video-enabled mobile devices.
New data released from The Nielson Company reveals that more than 15 million Americans were viewing video from their devices in the second quarter of 2009 – a 70 percent increase year over year. Mobile viewing averaged a total of 3 hours and 15 minutes per month in the quarter, nearly identical to Internet video habits, which averaged 3 hours and 11 minutes.
Worldwide, market analysis firm Pyramid Research projects mobile video subscriber totals to grow five times between 2008 and 2014 to surpass 534 million. Pyramid notes that while about 2.5 percent of global wireless customers currently subscribe to mobile video services, that number will increase to roughly 8.5 percent by 2014, citing the availability of improved devices and networks as the keys to driving adoption.
But competing in the mobile video arena means costly upgrades in the 3G world. Third-generation networks such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) will reach network capacity given the steady growth of video, requiring operators to deploy more base stations, invest in more backhaul links and add expensive MIMO antennas to continue upgrading their core elements. As such, the cost to transport data traffic goes through the roof.
“Video is consuming bandwidth,” Steinberg said. “The end user might be paying $20 per month, but the network operator could end up paying significantly more just to transmit a single video session. Today’s 3G networks simply will not be able to handle the influx of video traffic without costly investments.”
Some mobile operators reported a surge in data consumption of between six and 14-fold in 2008, while others recorded even higher spikes in demand for data usage. Motorola’s own research found that most users are predicted to consume more than 2 GBs per month of streaming video content as users indicated they wanted to view data-hogging services such as full-length movies.
To cope with the influx of traffic today, some 3G operators are incorporating data caps, trying to offload traffic onto WiFi networks and incorporating technologies that might include ratcheting back data speeds during peak times. But they can only hold off the inevitable for so long, as a flood of smartphones capable of offering rich Internet experiences continue to flood the market.
In the long run, video-hungry mobile users can be satiated through next-generation network technologies such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology – a high-capacity, hyper-fast all-IP mobile network. Within LTE lie the capabilities to benefit from the proverbial perfect storm of video consumption as LTE technology dramatically decreases the cost of transmitting data bits, Steinberg said.
“LTE promises to change the dynamics, by lowering operating costs not only because of a simpler network architecture with fewer network controllers to manage but also because of enhanced spectral efficiency, reduced operating expenses and a concerted push to lower intellectual property costs to a single-digit percentage of the value of handset sales,” noted Pyramid Research Analyst Daniel Locke in a recent research piece.
In particular, LTE eliminates the need for operators to continually increase the number of cell sites they need to support the surge in data. Motorola estimates that in most western European capitols, HSPA operators would need to expand the number of sites by a factor of three to seven by 2011 just to keep pace with data demands.
Operators also have the opportunity with LTE to offer a high-quality user experience, Steinberg said. LTE and its flat-IP architecture have the inherent advantage incorporating a wide variety of technology features, including an OFDM air interface, frequency selective scheduling and improved interference cancellation. This creates a multi megabit per second experience where end users have a fixed-like broadband experience anytime, anyplace with connect times that are nearly instant.
“LTE subscribers will have this high-speed data experience roughly five times faster than what they experience today on even the most advanced HSPA networks with a downlink speed close to six to eight megabits per second,” Steinberg said. “High quality video streaming will virtually buffer instantly and provide a seamless video experience. End users can’t get that on even the most optimized HSPA networks.”
Not unlike the television world, video quality will be an important factor for end users going forward as their devices push the envelope with higher resolution screens and enhanced audio performance. While IP core networks and better video codec technology enable more efficient transmission of higher quality video services, valuable bandwidth is wasted if every device is streamed at the same video resolution, Steinberg said.
For instance, small screen sizes don’t require full 1080i HD streams to deliver high-quality viewing. On smartphones, much lower resolution feeds deliver visuals similar to the appearance of HD. All devices will broadcast their screen capability automatically, but back-office capabilities can decompress the stream to the appropriate format to provide high-quality experiences without unnecessarily consuming valuable bandwidth.
That capability is particularly valuable when operators embark on multi-screen video opportunities, whereby video is delivered over the PC, television and mobile phone.
“Consider an IP-based triple-play offering,” Steinberg said. “If you start watching a movie in your home you can press a button on the cable box indicating you are switching that content to the mobile device. The video recompresses to match the screen size of your mobile device and resumes on the device.”
In short, the flexibility and advantages of LTE and its video ecosystem means operators don’t have to be afraid of delivering mobile video to the mass market.