The European Broadcasting Union has published a whitepaper looking at a hybrid delivery ecosystem that can feed distributed ‘edge caches’ on 5G and other regional terrestrial networks over satellites.
The EBU first announced the 5G-EMERGE project last year, as part of an agreement with the European Space Agency to work together on developing solutions that leverage 5G systems and so-called ‘edgecasting’ to put Europe at the forefront of media delivery technology.
The aim of the project is to develop an integrated satellite and terrestrial system based on open standards to enable high-quality content distribution services.
The 5G-EMERGE project has now published its first whitepaper, which looks at how the architecture can enable service providers to deliver video streaming services cost-effectively and at scale, on land, sea, and in the air.
The ecosystem is based on a native-IP hybrid infrastructure and open standards, combining cloud and edge-caching technologies, satellite coverage, and technologies such as 5G, offering access and flexibility, and enabling a range of business models.
The technology can also help to alleviate bottle-necks, increase robustness, and improve the user experience, said the whitepaper.
It requires no dedicated capabilities from consumer hardware, as users continue to access desired content via regular 5G or broadband and the content is served from an edge cache on that network. Suitable content delivery use-cases for the architecture include both live signals such as sports or news and on-demand video content.
“5G-EMERGE represents a significant step forward in the field of ubiquitous media distribution,” according to the whitepaper.
“[It] is a comprehensive, adaptable, and future-oriented solution for global media distribution. The key value of the 5G EMERGE ecosystem is its ability to deliver diverse content seamlessly across various devices and networks in the constantly evolving landscape of media consumption and distribution,” added the whitepaper.
“The 5G-EMERGE concepts and end-to-end ecosystem has already been demonstrated and the aim is to provide market ready solutions in 2026, to augment 5G network deployments in that timeframe.”
The whitepaper is available here.
