In its new Traffic and Market Data report, which provides insights into current trends, Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) forecasts a 10-fold increase in mobile data traffic by 2016. The report is based on measurements the company recorded over several years in live networks covering all regions of the world. Johan Wibergh, Head of Ericsson Business Unit Networks, said, “Ericsson performs a broad range of measurements in order to monitor the pulse of the Networked Society – measurements that we use to efficiently design our products and plan networks. This report offers snapshots that, together, show how a growing number of people and businesses benefit from mobility, broadband and the cloud.” According to the report, mobile broadband subscriptions will reach almost five billion in 2016, up from the expected 900 million by the end of 2011.That would represent 60 percent year-on-year growth, at the same time as the data consumed by smartphone users is surging. Total smartphone traffic is expected to triple during 2011. Across all devices, Internet access will continue to drive mobile traffic development and mobile data traffic is expected to grow by nearly 60 percent per year between 2011 and 2016, mainly driven by video. Other highlights from the report: By 2016 more than 30 percent of the world’s population will live in metropolitan and urban areas with a density of more than 1,000 people per square kilometer. These areas represent less than one percent of the Earth’s total land area, yet they are set to generate around 60 percent of total mobile traffic. Mobile broadband, new smartphone launches and applications uptake will continue to drive data consumption. At the same time, there is strong momentum for smartphone uptake in all regions. Ericsson expects traffic generated by advanced smartphones to increase 12-fold to roughly equal mobile PC-generated traffic by 2016.
GlobeCast has signed a contract with broadcaster Trace to broadcast its new HD channel, Trace Sports HD, on the NSS-806 satellite. Thanks to this new coverage, Trace Sports HD will enter the region with strong growth in the payTV sector and have access to a potential audience of 18 million DTH and cable homes in North, Central, and South America. The service provided by GlobeCast for Trace includes reception of its European signal in Paris, as well as turnaround uplink and space capacity on the NSS-806 satellite. This satellite offers ideal coverage to every country in the Americas. Trace is a multimedia group and an international brand that specializes in the production and distribution of channels dedicated to urban music and sports celebrities. Trace and GlobeCast have a longstanding working relationship going back several years. Trace Sports HD will further diversify the neighborhood of channels present on NSS-806, as well as the HD offerings of pay-TV bouquets on cable, DTH satellite, IPTV, and mobile services. Several operators in Latin America have already decided to include Trace Sports HD in their lineups.
Imagine Communications has announced plans to demonstrate the industry’s most scalable and efficient multiscreen IP video delivery solutions at SCTE (Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers) Cable-Tec Expo® 2011 in Atlanta, George, from November 15th to 17th. In booth #1532, Imagine will demonstrate live multi-format video streaming to multiple tablets using the company’s ICE® Streaming System. This powerful new video processing platform combines leading picture quality and unlimited scalability with full support for integrated fragmentation, encryption and HTTP streaming, allowing operators to deploy multiscreen services on the same high availability platforms used to deliver industry-leading HD and SD broadcast transcoding. Fueled by the growing popularity of tablets, smartphones and Internet video content viewing, IPTV services are expected to generate $20 billion in extra revenues over the next four years, according to research firm Ovum. Digital TV Research recently reported that global revenues from over-the-top (OTT) TV and video services is expected to skyrocket to $21.52 billion in 2016 from $3.48 billion in 2010.
Main broadcaster of the recent rugby World championship hosted in New Zealand, SKY Television New Zealand, has implemented EVS’ specialist live production systems to provide the complete live video recording, replay, and content management infrastructure for the coverage of all matches in HD. Aiming to deliver the most exciting viewing experience to millions of worldwide rugby fans, SKY TV New Zealand productions opted for a complete EVS technology-based architecture for all recordings and fast turnaround editing operations. The live production operations of all matches were covered by four HD mobile units and two flyaway production kits distributed to different venues around the country. Each OB unit was equipped with six to eight XT series servers, depending on the number of games. Up to 24 cameras and five Super Motion systems were used to cover the top matches. EVS’ live production systems were used by SKY TV production teams at all venues to generate a comprehensive number of replays, including Super Slow Motion and quick highlights of key actions from every match. SKY TV New Zealand is one of the first broadcasters to deploy the new generation XT3 EVS servers to produce a globally broadcast event. In addition to a significant increase in capacity and media processing bandwidth, the XT3 system under LSM control (Live Slow Motion) allowed SKY TV productions to support two Super Motion HD camera feeds for record and instant replay in the same machine. Complementing the on-site coverage, SKY TV has built a centralized indexed media server at the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) in Auckland. Composed of four networked XT2 servers, the indexed media server is used to manage the recording of all rugby matches feeds as well as unilateral feeds. Ingested material is logged using IPlogger, part of EVS’ content management suite IPDirector. The advanced browsing system of IPDirector is also used by production and post-production teams to instantly retrieve specific match actions for summary, highlight and magazine-style program creation in Final Cut Pro. Using EVS XF2 technology, the system also provides the official archive of all matches of the event.
Thomson Video Networks will demo’ing their products at SCTE Cable-Tec 2011. One product will be the ViBE VS7000 video system. This is a new “anything in, anything out” transcoding platform for convergent applications such as web TV and over-the-top services delivery, traditional IPTV, and IP/cable delivery. This fully integrated IP video solution transcodes compressed video streams and files. Fifteen years of best-in-class video quality and innovation in compression are built into the breakthrough ViBE VS7000 video system, which combines all major audio/video codecs, the latest adaptive streaming formats, and a resilient IT platform for native redundancy and scalability. Another spotlight will be on the Company’s Sapphire MPEG Broadcast Server. This is a unique “channel-in-a-box” solution with advanced capture, playout, and regionalization capabilities, operating frame-accurately in the compressed domain, Sapphire provides all the functions needed to ingest, process, brand, and generate TV channels ready for air. Sapphire is a compressed domain server with input and output transport streams. New features include frame-accurate clip editing enhancements, advanced logo-insertion features (support for H.264, new scheduling capabilities), and BXF support. These features improve the flexibility of the video server, in particular when used with external automation or traffic systems.
