China Media Group, China Mobile, and Huawei Jointly Completed the Industry's First Verification of UHD Live Streaming Through 5G SA Network Slices

[Beijing, China, May 17, 2019] The China Media Group, China Mobile, and Huawei successfully completed the first UHD live streaming verification through a real end-to-end 5G network slice. This is also the industry's first live streaming slice on the 3GPP-compliant 5G SA network.

This test uses the E2E 5G SA network slice provided by China Mobile and Huawei. This slice is dedicated to provide the CCTV 4K live streaming services with the ultra-high bandwidth and ultra-low latency. The test personnel use 4K cameras to shoot videos in the outdoor field of Dong Zhi Meng of China Mobile Beijing. The video streams after being encoded and compressed are backhauled to the 4K TVs through the 5G SA network. The test verifies that the network slice for the CCTV live streaming effectively provides the ultra-high bandwidth for live streaming services. The smooth, clear live streaming with high-priority assurance is ensured when traffic increases sharply on the RAN, transport network, and core network.

Technical team members participating in the 4K video live streaming test on 5G SA network slice

5G network slicing changes the "single runway" service model of the traditional 3G/4G network, and provides dedicated "runways" for different service scenarios to enable vertical industries. The solution enables carriers to almost literally slice a network into multiple virtual E2E networks on the same hardware infrastructure. Each network slice is logically isolated from end to end, including terminals, radio access network (RAN), transport networks, and core networks. This meets various requirements in different industries and service scenarios. This verification uses the SA base station, SPN transport network, and brand-new 5GC network from China Mobile to build dedicated channels based on 5G network infrastructure and slice services, for a guaranteed 4K UHD video playback experience. 5G network slicing will be widely used in fields, such as live media broadcasting, smart grid, and mobile gaming. It can deploy connections on demand in various application scenarios.

After the test, the three parties will continue to deepen cooperation. They plan to explore more application scenarios and slice types under mobile environment in the phase-2 test. This further promotes the commercial verification of 5G in media.