When we talk about 5G, there is one phrase that everyone agrees and likes to say – 5G will not only enhance speeds, but also have every thing ‘connected’ and every industry ‘converged’. What underlies all of this 'keeping every thing connected' is IoT while what keeps industries converged is artificial intelligence (AI) that analyzes big data and derives in...

We are pleased to share with you all an interesting article contributed by Avi Dorfman who is technology executive with over 20 years of experience in the development and delivery of telecommunications systems. Avi Dorfman VP R&D at Telco Systems All Articles by Avi Dorfman...

Google Global Caches (GGCs) have already been deployed in many telecom operators' data centers around the world, caching YouTube video files like Psy's Gangnam Style for the local users. This allows people around the globe to watch Psy singing and dancing without buffering through their local GGCs. Korean operators like SK Telecom, LG U+ and KINX have also made the same move in February...

This post will analyze the streaming methods used in YouTube's Live TV streaming services for mobile devices in an LTE network and a Wi-Fi network based on our actual measurements. YouTube's Live TV Streaming in Mobile Devices: HLS & Adaptive First, measurements in an LTE network The mobile device and network used for our measurement were Galaxy S4 and KT LTE network. First,...

Recently, YouTube has changed/evolved the way it delivers video contents. It used to be a big fan of HTTP progressive download (downloading a video file by a single request just like downloading a data file) until last year. However, from this year, many efforts have been made by YouTube (e.g. switching to chunking and adaptive streaming) for improved video delivery. We will focus on "switching...

SK Telecom, the Korean No. 1 telecom operator, launched Btv Mobile service (in SD/HD) offering a variety of live broadcasting and VoD contents for mobile devices in around July 2012. And a year later in July 2013, boosted by the commercialization of LTE-A, it began a "Full HD" streaming service with drastically enhanced video quality. The following is the press release by SK Telecom about its n...

In our previous post (Analysis of LG U+'s HDTV Streaming (LG U+ HDTV Service based on LTE-A), we discussed how LG U+ Mobile U+ HDTV service delivers video files to a device. Our first actual measurement confirmed that LG U+: used HLS, Apple's adaptive streaming (delivering video files chunkwise, unlike progressive download or RTMP/RTSP); and offered three profiles (quality levels)...

On June 10, 2013, LG U+ launched U+ HDTV multi-channel service (U+ tv G 4 Channel Service) that enables users to watch 4 channels at the same time through home STB. Later in July, it introduced the same multi-channel service in a mobile version based on LTE-A. In this post, we will analyze the U+ HDTV streaming on mobile devices that support LTE-A. U+ HDTV service offers two viewing experi...

Sandvine has recently reported that, in the second half of 2012, Netflix and YouTube accounted for 48% (33% and 15% respectively) of the total Internet traffic in North America, making telecom operators' IP network look like a video transport network rather the Internet. With an ever-increasing number of users and higher-resolution videos, the traffic of these two (and hence the delivery c...

Last week (March 27, 2013), KT, No. 1 telecommunications company in Korea with annual revenue of $22.3 billion in 2012, has entered into an agreement with Akamai, the world's No. 1 CDN service provider with annual revenue of $1.37 billion in 2012, for using Akamai's Managed CDN services. Since 2012, world's leading CDN service providers including Akamai, Limelight, Edgecast, etc. ha...

As noted in our previous post, we will present you workflow that shows how a YouTube video is downloaded to an LG U+ subscriber device via Google Global Caches installed in the LG U+ Internet. First, we will discuss the case when LG U+ Google servers have a video that has been requested by a subscriber (Cache Hit). Then, we will discuss the case when none of the servers have it (Cache Miss)....

We are going to present you workflow that shows how a YouTube video is downloaded to a subscriber device via Google Global Caches installed in LG U+. Below, we will look at downloading over the KT Internet, which has no Google Global Cache installed in it. In the subsequent post, downloading procedures in the LG U+ Internet, which has Google Global Caches installed in it, will be discussed...