Huawei and Vodafone Spain have carried out a trial for LTE broadcast eMBMS (evolved multimedia broadcast multicast services) technology for the first time, allowing multimedia content to be distributed to users over a 4G network.
This eMBMS solution on Vodafone’s network in Spain is one of the first in Europe. It is also the most ambitious in the world, offering five channels in HD (high-definition) format.
During the Valencia vs Celta football match, a selection of users had real-time access to five channels of multimedia content from the game, by using smartphones that support the new eMBMS technology. This was accomplished through the cooperation between Huawei, Vodafone and Valencia CF.
The LTE broadcast technology reuses current 4G LTE spectrums, and allocates a small fragment for multicast purposes. To ensure a better user experience, the same signal carrying identical content is transmitted to improve reception and strengthen the LTE broadcast.