Continued from LTE SPECIAL REPORT 2014: A value-added tack, part V – LTE security solutions
Video over LTE
To see where LTE might be taking us in terms of value-added service potential one should look to South Korea, which at the moment is leading the way, says Pujol of iDate.
“Operators are marketing LTE on its superior QoS levels in South Korea,” he says. “It’s a differentiating factor for now.”
But operators there, and in North America, are also trying to market the appeal of LTE by stressing its video potential.
“They are talking about things like a video uplink service, so you can have a camera in your car that watches the road,” he says.
Jean-Marie Culpin, group marketing director at Orange, agrees it is vital that LTE users should see a clear evolution from 3G.
“For the benefit of our 1 million French 4G subscribers, we are looking to focus on things like video services,” he says. “We’re trying to extend the services we’ve got to LTE and look at TV channels too. We want people to get the same access at home as they do away on their tablets and smartphones.”
In the US LTE market battleground, carriers are leveraging technologies of all sorts to make video over LTE work for subscribers. Steve Livingston, SVP of carrier development at iPass, believes AT&T may have helped itself get ahead of its rivals with its LTE-Wifi handover combination.
“If you can offer something that takes away the anxiety of communication on the move, you’ve got a killer,” he believes.
Tony Lefebvre, director of product management with TE Connectivity, a vendor of solutions for data protection, agrees that it is essential for carriers to look for ways to deliver new services, like video: “LTE is so strong when you want to watch, for example, live sport, particularly where it is working with Wifi offload, helping to deliver high-bandwidth services.”
Lefebvre points to Verizon Wireless, which is deploying its AWS spectrum across the US to boost capacity. In some areas, he says, Verizon is tripling the spectrum dedicated to its LTE service in order to meet video demand.
To read part VII – Conclusion – click here.
