Vodafone has become the first Europeam carrier to run a live LTE test of LTE Broadcast. The trial took place on Saturday at the Borussia Mönchengladbach stadium for the club’s match against 1899 Hoffenheim.
Participating were Ericsson, Qualcomm Technologies and Samsung.
LTE Broadcast – also known as evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) – puts no additional load on the network, enabling smartphone users in device dense locations to watch TV channels in high-quality. The service uses Single Frequency Network technology (like DVB-T) to distribute the signal to an unlimited number of recipients. The user only needs an LTE-enabled device with an LTE Broadcast app.
“This first test in Europe is an important milestone for the European mobile telecommunications sector. LTE Broadcast will soon be delivering unlimited TV or video content to people in device dense places such as stadiums, public viewing areas or shopping centers. I enjoy watching a good match at the stadium and it’s going to be an even more exciting experience when I can watch the replay of the scene that lead to a penalty or goal or check up on the progress of the toughest competing teams in the league while my team’s playing,” said Thomas Norén, Head of Product Area Radio.
Vodafone Germany is considering the installation of LTE equipment across further stadia as part of a planned network upgrade.
