VodafoneZiggo has conducted a test with live-streaming on 13 November during the light art festival GLOW in Eindhoven. Despite the crowds, the company managed to live-stream footage from several cameras simultaneously to the cloud, and subsequently share it with interested viewers through YouTube. GigaNet, the combined network of Vodafone and Ziggo, is used to deploy this technology.

During the test, multiple cameramen were using their smartphone to film the various light artworks located throughout the city. A director combined the footage coming in into a livestream that could be watched live on YouTube, as well as on a screen in pop podium De Effenaar.

The GLOW festival is a logical site for this test, as VodafoneZiggo and the city of Eindhoven want to develop new applications together by means of 5G technology. ‘Network slicing’ is such a technology, guaranteeing bandwidth for a specific application. GLOW in Eindhoven is pre-eminently suited for such a test, as the many visitors cause the mobile network to be very busy, which makes guaranteeing a stable live stream quite a challenge. By the way, this test was conducted on the 4G network of VodafoneZiggo.

The livestream for this network test was realized by Camerize. This company offers a platform which provides multiple-camera livestreams of events, using smartphones and a production in the cloud. In collaboration with the companies 360⁰ Verbeelding and VodafoneZiggo, they are developing a new experience of pop concerts in De Effenaar. In this, they use 2D as well as 3D technology. The new opportunities enabled by 5G play an essential role.

VodafoneZiggo expects that the use of this kind of new technologies will enable critical applications, such as live video streaming. But also communication between emergency services, remote control of vehicles and drones, operating robots in factories etc. "The test provides us and our partners with technical and functional insights," says Sander van der Zande of VodafoneZiggo. "Together we strive to offer new, critical communication services in the future to consumers, companies and the government."

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