Predictions 2019 | TelecomDrive.com
The year 2019 will finally see deployments of 5G, and it would be fair to say that it’s going to change the communications landscape. Inspired by some of the findings from the Mobile Video Industry Council, here are some of my thoughts on what 2019 might hold for operators as they plan for and deploy 5G this year.
More OTT subscribers – transforming mobile video
With an augmentation in gigabit internet deployments across the globe and 5G promising speeds of anywhere between 10 and 50 Gbps, magnitudes faster than anything 4G can offer, OTT content will become easier and faster to access than ever before. As a result, there will be more OTT subscribers than traditional pay TV consumers by the end of 2019. Indeed, subscriptions to streaming services have already begun overtaking pay TV in both the UK and the US.
Mobile will become an increasingly preferred means of consuming OTT content, although it’s likely to be an additional screen rather than a replacement. Given the sheer volume of video content, and with the APIs it offers, 5G could soon be regarded as a video distribution network. Delivering a wealth of data for content providers and advertisers, it could truly transform the future of mobile video.
Surge in HD video traffic
While intensification in mobile video content was entirely expected, many operators didn’t expect the exponential growth in HD content. Our own research found that, by the end of 2018, 50 percent of all mobile video traffic would be HD, and this is set to increase to around 60 percent in 2019. This growth in HD, in addition to longer viewing times, will drive a further increase in video traffic on mobile networks.
In extension, 2019 will see the launch of yet more streaming services; Apple, WarnerMedia, and Disney+ have already been announced. This is good news for millions of subscribers, of course, but mobile operators now face the challenge of having to handle the resultant increase in traffic and ensuing encrypted protocols which have the potential to wreak havoc on Quality of Experience (QoE).
RAN congestion and QoE
Throughout 2019 as 5G makes its way, many operators will be busy preparing the architecture for their own 5G networks. As they do so, and as the appetite of users for ever more data continues to grow, 4G networks – and 4G radio networks (RAN) in particular – will begin to burst at the seams. QoE will suffer as a result, especially when it comes to video streaming, with users gauging network quality based on their video experience.
Enduring this, savvy operators must employ efficient, cost-effective solutions to tackle RAN congestion and its potential impact on QoE, while being sure to preserve CAPEX for their impending 5G deployments.
Managing Data
Paramount discussions around 5G’s benefits has centered around its high speed, ultra-low latency, and increased connectivity. What few operators have addressed, however, is what it will mean for data management.
The onset of 5G will see an evolution from managing just subscriber data to managing a whole variety of data, from fast-changing session data to long lasting subscription data. 5G’s service-based data architecture presents operators with ‘stateless’ cloud service, however, which, rather than storing data from once session to the next, instead rely on common external data management.
Given the tremendous complexity of these and other new data management requirements, a ‘common’ data approach is therefore recommended, in which operators will be required to introduce a unified, distributed cloud-based data layer which will help to address a range of concerns around 5G, including network automation and efficiency, latency and mobile edge computing, and monetization and secure data sharing.
5G is going to transform the telecoms landscape, and I can see, that 2019 is going to be a year of exciting new opportunities for the industry. But there’s no escaping the fact that it’s also going to be a year of challenges. Operators must be mindful; therefore, thoughtful consideration must be given to ensure that the infrastructure is in place to deliver the best possible experience for their subscribers, while at the same time, achieve operational and commercial success.
