Vodafone UK and ITN Test 5G Standalone for Live Broadcast TV

Mobile operator Vodafone and TV broadcaster ITN have today announced that the Coronation of King Charles III will be the first UK broadcast to be enabled by a public 5G Standalone (SA) network, which will harness a specific “network slice” on the operator’s trial network.

Existing 5G deployments in the United Kingdom tend to harness Non-Standalone (NSA) hardware and systems, which can deliver impressive mobile broadband download speeds, but they’re often hobbled by some dependence upon existing 4G services. By comparison, Standalone setups are pure end-to-end 5G networks that can deliver improvements such as faster latency times, better upload speeds, network slicing capabilities and more.

Vodafone has already launched a large-scale field trial of their 5G SA technology across parts of London, Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Bath, Glasgow and Birmingham (here), which seemed to be targeted at only selected customers with supportive hardware. But now this network also looks set to form the backbone of the latest TV broadcasting test.

The operator thus intends to dedicate an exclusive “slice” of Vodafone’s public 5GSA network to ITN in order to support the swift and secure transfer of the live Coronation broadcast coverage from Westminster to ITN’s HQ newsroom in Gray’s Inn Road. From here it can then be shared across the nation, and then worldwide.

Nick Gliddon, Vodafone UK Business Director, said:

“This innovative partnership will make HRH King Charles III Coronation the first 5GSA coronation. We are proud to be working with ITN to play our part in helping make this special event happen. Innovation is at the heart of Vodafone, from the first text message to the first mobile call, we have been central in the UK’s adoption of digital technology.

Now we are continuing this tradition by being the first to switch on 5GSA for the public to trial and providing a slice of this network for the Coronation. The possibilities with 5GSA are very exciting – AI, autonomous vehicles, holographic calls, IoT and more, 5GSA will turbo-charge the UK’s digital economy and pave the way for our next digital age.”

Previously, broadcasters might have attempted to setup a private mobile network in order to achieve a similar outcome, but that takes time, hardware, spectrum licensing and planning to arrange. By comparison, establishing a dedicated network slice within the existing public 5G network is a lot quicker and easier to achieve, assuming there’s enough capacity spare.

However, deploying 5G SA across more of the UK will be a much slower and more expensive process, since it requires operators to upgrade equipment at each of their mast sites. The complexity of this ensures that it won’t be an easy task.