Antonio Arcidiacono

Keynote: “5G & Broadcasting”

During the present Covid crisis the combination of unique and trusted content delivered via a multilayer infrastructure combining internet and broadcast has been demonstrated to serve citizens at best. The need to sustainably reach 100% of the population but also 100% of the territory on all platforms remains the ultimate priority and the ensemble of 5G specifications combined with a multilayer architecture represent a tangible opportunity to implement this ideal goal.

5G is promising to take a central role from production to distribution and the cloud-based virtualization of network management, creating the opportunity to transparently integrate internet and broadcasting in a single IP infrastructure.For the first time it will be possible to seamlessly integrate media delivery using cell sites, broadcast towers and a Satellite overlay.

The unicast delivery of personalized contents, the broadcast delivery of events interesting large number of users and entire territories and the multicast push delivery of media contents, using local storage at network edges, will maximize efficiency and economical sustainability.

The cost of and the power consumption of the whole distribution infrastructure will be optimized, guaranteeing the coverage of any territory. An optimized number of base stations will mean better economies for any operator.

5G is designed to integrate vertical industries enabling the deployment of software-based network elements, and the provision of standardized interfaces and APIs towards service providers. Using a Cloud‑based network architectural approach of media optimised network ‘slices` it is possible to seamlessly integrate broadcast functions with online delivery. Broadcast systems could be used to distribute popular media content over a large region to the home network or network head‑end in a gateway or base‑station, converging existing DTT or satellite delivery mechanisms with online media services. While the end users’ access to media content remains unchanged, the playout application will seamlessly connect to the application running on the ‘Cloud/Edge’ solution (for example using DVB‑I).

These (distributed) Edges can run applications for immersive and personalised services with an optimal Quality of Experience by caching the playout content as close as possible to the media consuming audiences. Content can be cached and processed closer to the end user to include on demand use, personalisation, localisation and optimisation of the quality of the media consumption experience of end users in vehicles such as cars, trains, planes, ships or those audiences in fixed locations such as houses or apartment complexes.

Combining different physical infrastructure, we can create a resilient, reliable and sustainable infrastructure to deliver essential services to the whole population and in the whole territory.

The availability of concurrent networks is also fundamental to guarantee reliability and security of service delivery. A single infrastructure will not meet all needs. Using a combination of several layers of security on different physical supports will provide redundancy and reliability.