Many people still think of 5G as a concept, but the technology is already having a transformative impact on video distribution. The next-generation network is expected to have transformed the way we experience things- live arena, sports, concerts, games, and more importantly Over the top media is not going to be the same as it is right now. Lower last minute mile latency connectivity, greater bandwidth, and connection density is expected to make space for new user experiences such as AR-based events, more experiment with AI, higher bitrates for improved streaming quality, and greater reliability. 

The way people used to consume media has drastically changed due to the Over-the-top platforms (OTT) in the last few years. With OTT services becoming more common in households around the world, consumer expectations for streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu continue to rise in lockstep. As the demand for high-quality content and seamless streaming grows, 5G offers the ideal opportunity to elevate the OTT viewer experience to new heights, especially given that video consumes the majority of mobile internet bandwidth today. Video-on-demand viewers will be able to say goodbye to buffering videos and stop-start streaming thanks to 5G’s incredible speeds and low latency.

The rise in smart home technology is very crucial for the growth of “connectivity craving”- consumers expect safe, fast, and continuous access to content irrespective of where they are. Things are going to change with 5G coming into the picture, connectivity and content consumption will have no bound. Population growth and increasing adaptation of mobile growth has been a major pushing factor for rapid adoption of 5G. As per the report by Ericsson, mobile data traffic is expected to rise fivefold by the end of 2025. 

According to reports, there is a pressing need for technology suppliers and mobile operators to prepare for widespread 5G deployment. It is critical to developing cutting-edge technology that facilitates the growth of the video streaming and OTT industry in particular. This applies to all aspects of the video lifecycle, including production, delivery, and distribution. After all, video streaming is regarded as a key driver for the 5G rollout, with participants in IHS Markit’s study ranking it as the activity they’ll do the most when 5G is available, followed by social media, mobile gaming, and virtual reality.

Currently, there is much virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications used for streaming content of your choice but the limitation right now is that they have to process using 4G. It eventually leads to slow-to-load and glitchy experiences ruining the whole experience of movies and shows. From the consumer’s point of view, they have been welcoming the inclusion of VR and AR in their streaming process. With 45 percent of those polled by IBM most excited about VR entertainment options when it comes to 5G applications. According to the same survey, 50% of consumers are excited about AR in movies and TV shows and its potential to deliver additional content.  

As complex VR processing can be done in the cloud with more computational power, 5G is critical in moving VR forward for streaming services. The biggest franchise across the world understands the coming importance of VR, NBA recently partnered with Verizon in order to integrate VR viewing options for NBA League Pass streaming platform and it won’t be a surprise to see more brands jumping in with 5G becoming more real. 

Currently Harmonic revealed that South Korea, a hub for operators SKT, KT, and LGU+ already deployed VR applications in 5G networks. The primary application for said technologies are for sports, music clips, and of course, OTT platforms on HMD and phones, which includes multi came and multigame alongside 8K streaming through phone pan and scan which can help you focus and zoom on whole content.

All of these things sound that they are going to bring humongous change but there are certain constraints in this field. To achieve those high bitrates, the 5G radio carrier must have a “high range” frequency. Other than for astrophysics or military use, these 20GHz to 100GHz bands are not yet widely available for licensing. Because of the high oxygen absorption at this frequency range, 60GHz is the most desirable for 5G because it results in the least interference between masts operating on the same frequency. Throughput is significantly lower around 10Ghz and below—the currently licensed frequencies—and is comparable to 4G and 5G.

At licensed frequencies, 5G typically has a range of 800m. This means that there will be more transmitters. Each transmitter can communicate with a set of remote devices. More transmitters will also mean more devices it can connect to. This means that the relative “contention” on a given backhaul fiber may be lower over a given area. As a result, more users can stream per mast at any given time. To be honest, 4G is not struggling right now. Consumers may demand lower contention ratios if their signal is constantly buffering, but most buffering occurs due to distance from a mast rather than backhaul contention. Also, because backhaul is almost always dark fiber, capacity can be “easily” increased at the contention point.

To commercialize these capabilities, a full ecosystem, from actual 5G network deployments to 5G smartphones and modems, should be implemented. Currently, it’s still a premature stage for the deployment of 5G smartphones and moderns. Companies such as AT&T, Ericsson, LiveU, and Samsung understand the future prospects and have partnered with content owners to commercially provide live sports through 5g. T be commercially viable, this would necessitate widespread adoption of 5G to their places because handheld devices are most likely to be unable to support 8K due to small screen sizes. Fixed Wireless Access-based video delivery is one of the most significant changes that should be enabled by a mature 5G network. This will allow carriers with 5G networks to compete directly with traditional wireline cable providers by delivering high-quality video to the largest screen in your home. 

The major point of focus is to offer a value proposition in the user experience so that consumers would be willing to pay for the improved experience provided by 5G. Even though QoS will be improved, standard video applications will not be able to provide that distinguishing experience. Video providers are still looking for a killer app, which could lead to a more immersive video experience. We are in the initial stage of discovering what 5G can do, but the potential of authentic, live, highly personalized, and interactive experiences is becoming more achievable as we progress into a 5G-dominated era.

All these issues can be resolved through a simple solution- CDN. Content delivery networks that are located far away at the edges are highly suitable for mobile networks. They allow operators to quickly scale streaming instances up and down as per requirements. It is the only technology that has management capabilities of this level and they function better in wireless networks where capacity constraints are common. 

With mobile network being more congested, their ability to shape bitrates and manage sessions on a highly granular level which allows efficient network utilization and QoE optimization. In case a video quality is compromised in any manner, viewers might leave the service. t is possible to deliver better, higher-quality, and more cost-effective 5G video applications by load balancing between PoPs and on-net CDNs and off-loading to third-party CDNs to optimize peaks, reach, and redundancy.

To simplify infrastructure management and enable the ability to automate session scaling, it is critical to building a CDN on Software Defined Networking (SDN) design principles. As a result of advanced routing capabilities and the ability to optimize QoE, common problems such as network congestion when delivering video content over wireless networks can be addressed.

5G functions and applications are set up as visual instances in a virtualized data center, another option for the same is storing them in the cloud either categorized as public or private. CDN’s that are made while keeping SDN principles in mind is intended to be deployed as virtualized software instances in a Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) environment, running in a data center with separate control and data planes. In a 5G architecture, this approach simplifies configuration management and the orchestration of streaming instances, including associated caches. With edge and mobile edge computing (MEC) capabilities, it enables mobile operators to adapt their architecture to topology and geography. 

 With 5G becoming common and coming close day by day, it is very important to be prepared for 5G video streaming. It is extremely crucial to ensure video streaming infrastructure for the future opportunities that are going to come up in near future with 5G setting its foot. It is undoubtedly going to benefit CDN operators because it offers an opportunity to install flexible computing architecture distributed throughout the network which is much deeper into the edge and follows a modern distribution architecture that is changing to be known as “fog” architecture as it escaped the public cloud system and is a bigger part of telco infrastructure.