H.265 Codec over 4G Networks for Telemedicine System Application

This paper presents the exploratory stages of a project to develop Telemedicine services in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The project intends to take advantage of recent technological developments. It proposes a new video-encoding scheme as a replacement for other video codecs currently used in telemedicine systems. H.265 is suggested for telemedicine systems because it can support high-quality video streaming for telemedicine systems and at the same time it requires less bandwidth than its predecessor H.264. This perfectly fits within 4G wireless network capabilities such as WiMAX and Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. The project targets patients whom cannot easily access the hospital to be monitored or be treated by a specialist even though this is needed for patient cases such as rehabilitation, and paraplegics. Using LTE and WiMAX to form the telemedicine framework means that the system could be used either from the home to monitor the patient or it could be used from mobile devices such as smart-phones, PDAs, or laptops. In addition to the initial results, future investigations are proposed for optimal streaming of H.265 over 4G wireless networks.