5G Archives - Hello Future

Live streaming has become increasingly widespread. With the addition of 5G, this service can be dramatically improved at all levels, including image quality, download times, interruptions and lag. Faced with today’s generations’ enthusiasm for live feeds, researchers are now working to adapt live streaming TV so it can be done on the go. The Goal: Lag-Free Live Streams Getting closer to what’s happening live is one of the main challenges in the field of live streaming. Yet, streaming over the Internet using Wi-Fi or 4G still results in a lag of 30, 40 or even 50 seconds on tablets or smartphones. This lag will particularly hit home for any soccer fans who have ever heard their neighbor watching TV and cheering for a goal they haven’t seen yet. It also affects participants in time-limited interactive TV game shows and televised broadcasts by figures of authority in relation to announcements, alerts or disasters, for example. Ensuring service continuity, particularly when faced with high demand, is another challenge of live streaming. At Orange Innovation, researchers are therefore thinking about how they can make improvements in the field of TV streaming on the go, using a combination of 5G, video streaming technologies (multicast, low latency), network bandwidth allocation (network slicing) and edge computing. Their work has primarily focused on mutualizing streams; a key way of saving bandwidth. Dominique Thômé, Product Manager Innovation Data TV, explains that “Unlike unicast technology, which broadcasts streams as many times as there are simultaneous connections, multicast should allow a single stream to be broadcast to thousands of people connected to a large 5G zone. This mutualization prevents bandwidth loss and, consequently, service interruptions from network congestion. Another advantage, which is of great importance to Orange, is that it consumes less energy and therefore contributes to the transition to a low-carbon economy.” Recognizing the Know-How of Carriers Experiments carried out in the Orange laboratory have yielded interesting results. A real-time readjustment of video quality to prevent network saturation resulted in each customer being able to watch TV with only five seconds of lag, confirming the feasibility of 5G live streaming on the go. In fact, faced with ever-increasing volumes, some broadcasters are beginning to turn to carriers to broadcast their TV streams. They need players that are able to transmit this huge amount of data while ensuring optimal quality, in order to avoid any latency problems. Thibaut Mathieu, Director of Innovation for Interactive & Multiscreen Services at Orange says that “Our pioneering approach toward 5G live streaming highlights the valuable role that network carriers play, right at the heart of the system, compared to OTT players (“over the top,” such as the Tech Giants), both in terms of technology and business. We will be able to get involved in data transmission, with optimal mutualization technology that will save money and energy.” These technologies are consistent with Orange’s CSR commitment, both in terms of carbon footprint (lower energy consumption) and inclusion (broadcasting the right information at the right time). More than Just Entertainment The challenge goes far beyond the traditional TV broadcasting market itself. In the context of the health crisis, brands have been quick to understand the value of live streams to generate sales and are starting to venture into “Live Shopping.” Originating from China, this large-scale approach to teleshopping consists of an online event where presenters, influencers or personalities showcase products live to a digital audience who are able to order products or ask questions. Live Shopping is attracting more and more brands around the world. “With hundreds of thousands of people connected at the same time, its large scale will certainly create capacity issues” says Thômé. “This is another case where mutualization will ensure quality of service.”

Networks and IT / Article

How 5G Is Revolutionizing Live Streaming

Live streaming has become increasingly widespread. With the addition of 5G, this service can be dramatically improved at all levels, including image quality, download times, interruptions and lag. Faced with today’s generations’ enthusiasm for live feeds, researchers are now working to adapt live streaming TV so it can be done on the go. The Goal: […]

A group of friends watching a match on TV

Networks and IT / Article

With 5G Video Transmission, Live Truly Does Mean Live

For a long time, streaming live content required complicated infrastructure. To film and broadcast a live report from a foreign country, journalists and camera crew were needed, as well as a production team and a van featuring a satellite antenna. This equipment was used to send back recorded footage to the home country’s media control […]

Networks and IT / Article

Graphene, an innovation accelerator for the optoelectronics of tomorrow

Synthesized for the first time in 2004 by Russian physicists Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim and earning them the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010, graphene is often described as a “miracle material” because of its unique properties, be they mechanical, electric or thermal. A two-dimensional sheet made up of carbon atoms arranged in a […]

Networks and IT / Word of innovation

Small cells

Small cells are short-range, low-transmit power access points to a mobile telecommunications network. This technology for 4G and 5G networks relies on the installation of a large number of base stations covering small geographical areas and interior spaces, such as train stations and shopping malls. The deployment of small cells over the coming years will […]

Digital culture / Article

Journey through the Metaverse: Is the Future of Retail Virtual?

The digital media market is doing well thanks to video games. Many developers depend on it and are abandoning the hitherto dominant model of games being purchased as a finished product and giving each customer access to the same content. These developers now offer multiplayer applications and games, such as World of Warcraft, Fortnite or […]

Networks and IT / Word of innovation

Open RAN

Open RAN (for “Open Radio Access Network”) is a network architecture that, via open protocols and interfaces, makes it possible to build open smart multi-vendor radio access networks. In a mobile network, the radio access network (RAN), made up of antennas and base stations, connects mobile terminals to the whole mobile network. Today, the technologies […]

Research / Article

Connected Cars En Route to Autonomy

On October 21, 2021, the 5GCroCo project teams—who come from carriers in multiple countries and from car manufacturers for different brands—showcased their work. “This is an important step after 12 years of research on connected mobility,” says Cédric Seureau, Program Manager at Orange Innovation. “5GCAR, a previous project, aimed to design the global architecture, taking into […]

Networks and IT / Article

Quality of Service on Mobile Networks: What Data and AI Promise

Network coverage, voice quality, dropped-call rates, data speeds: quality of service (QoS) indicators are as diverse as they are accurate in order to provide an acute picture of customer experience levels. Poor quality of service is synonymous with ‘customer churn,’ where customers simply jump ship and move to the competition. As a result, all carriers […]

Networks and IT / Article

A Lab for Testing the Benefits of Edge Computing on a 5G Network

Edge computing is a decentralized cloud computing model that brings data processing and storage closer to the users and machines that produce and/or consume it. Gone are the days where data must travel across the network to a centralized data center. Now, data can be processed locally, meeting the requirements of emerging use cases thanks […]

Research / Article

Air at the center of optical fibers to guide light

The use of silica glass in optical fibers has had profound impacts in many areas, from telecommunications to imaging, through cutting, laser welding, or lighting. In the area of telecommunications, single-mode fibers are solid glass tubes that enable the transmission of data at very high speeds over long distances. Over the last half a century, […]

Networks and IT / Article

5G Explores 26 GHz Band

Like the previous generations of mobile networks, 5G will eventually deploy across a number of frequency bands. In France, while commercial 5G is most commonly available in the 3.5 GHz band, in future it will be available at frequencies toward the top end of the spectrum, in the so-called millimeter wave (mmWave) range, in particular the […]

Networks and IT / Article

MWC 2021: With Pikeo, 5G Networks Switch to the Cloud and Become Autonomous

Previous generations of mobile networks were largely based on more monolithic and confined proprietary solutions, but 5G allows greater openness and flexibility, building on the advantages of cloud architectures and open-source technologies. Preparing the Networks of the Future Established technologies in the world of IT and service platforms are now being applied to networks: automation, […]