Facilitating convergence between broadcasting and mobile services using LTE networks

The first LTE networks have started commercial operation in 2009. Since then, LTE deployment is progressing fast. In the first networks the focus is on mobile broadband (MBB). The high capacity of LTE networks enables high quality rich media services delivery to advanced terminals like smartphones, tablet computers and laptops. In the beginning of 2010, support for enhanced Multimedia Broadcast / Multicast Service (eMBMS) has been added to the 3GPP LTE specifications building on provisions for single frequency network broadcasting that have been made in LTE already in its first release. This paper provides an introduction to LTE including the MBB and eMBMS functionality and shows performance figures for both services. For the broadcasting case we investigate the benefit of using optional application layer coding as specified by 3GPP to reduce the packet error rate to the very low levels that are desired for video streaming. We also compare the power consumption of a high tower TV transmitter with that of a low power LTE/eMBMS network providing the same coverage and data rate.