90% of traffic on 5G set to be mobile video
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Joseph O'Halloran
| 26 October 2018

Based on current trends and the upward trajectory of mobile video traffic, which has grown more than 50% year-on-year, Openwave Mobility’s Mobile Video Industry Council has projected that video will make up to nine-tenths of traffic on forthcoming 5G networks.

Openwave Mobility launched the Council for mobile operators to determine strategies to manage video on 4G and 5G networks. At its inaugural meeting in London, The Council— which included Tier 1 mobile operators Deutsche Telekom, EE, KPN, MTS, Orange, Telefonica, Telus and Vodafone — discussed recent trends in mobile video traffic and content, and operator concerns over RAN capacity, service differentiation and quality of experience (QoE). Growth in volumes of video traffic was, unsurprisingly, a major discussion point.

Whilst discussing the subject was not a surprise, Openwave Mobility said it did not expect to hear the reasons for it. The meeting heard that for most operators, growth in mobile video from 2010 to 2015 came as a result of increased video watch times. But, since 2015, growth in mobile video has come significantly as a result of a move to higher bandwidth HD content, rather than greater watch time only. This has also meant higher levels of obfuscated encryption protocols such as QUIC (Google) and 0-RTT (Facebook and Instagram) flooding the network impeding operators’ ability to deliver a consistent QoE. The Council in debated the conflicting components of quality of experience such as quality of delivery (reduced buffering) versus quality of picture (resolution) and the implications.

A special OTT content providers’ session investigated problems of shoe-horning TV content into mobile and the launching of new companies developing new video content that was branded as made-for-mobile”. The Council also highlighted the stress placed on networks by live events, especially sporting occasions, such as Russia 2018. In this regard, data consumption during a match was found to be double the data consumed during the “busy hour” for the remainder of the year.

“When 4G was launched, it was all about mobility and connectivity. 4G provided the impetus for companies like Uber, Waze and Spotify. 5G will have far more data intensive services that operators may struggle to grapple with,” said Openwave Mobility president and CEO John Giere. “For example, augmented reality can be 33x more data-intensive than 480p video, and once 5G comes to the fore, it is expected that OTT services will have more subscribers than pay-TV customers.”