When Camerize live-streams a festival like Lowlands, there is a risk that the link with one or more cameras breaks down. Capacity of 4G is limited and the audience, present in large numbers, is also actively using the network. With 5G, reliability will increase. Live-streaming will become a simple calculation: "50 Mbit available? That means five cameras then."

Camerize conducts a pilot as part of 5Groningen, the testing ground for the latest generation of mobile internet: 5G. 5Groningen is an initiative of Economic Board Groningen. Here, entrepreneurs and not-for-profit organizations work with experts like VodafoneZiggo to develop use cases with 5G.

Live-stream is sometimes a black box
Martinus Meiborg founded Camerize in 2010. "We offer multiple-camera productions in the cloud with smartphones. This means we use multiple phones as cameras to stream live video over the internet or a broadcasting system, for example at a festival. In doing so, our picture quality depends on the available bandwidth. The higher the bandwidth, the better the quality. When the audience is posting lots of photographs and videos on their social media at the same time, our live-stream is affected. The picture becomes jerky. During our coverage of a triathlon in Amsterdam, one of the camera links broke down completely. At that moment, there's nothing we can do about it, because in that respect the mobile network is a black box."

From assumption to calculation
With 5G live-streaming will become a lot more reliable. "We can agree with the provider on the bandwidth and choose the most suitable resolution. If the provider indicates that there is 50 Mbit available for a broadcast on Tuesday night between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., it is simply a matter of doing the maths. If we need 10Mbit per camera, we can deploy five cameras. The biggest advantage is that now quality will be guaranteed. As a result, we can offer our customers a better and more stable product."

Broadcasts together with Havenstad FM
In order to test that 5G guarantee, Camerize will be making broadcasts in Delfzijl together with Havenstad FM. "Our product in itself is very suitable for local broadcasters. There is no need for them to purchase expensive equipment in order to still provide a high-quality TV broadcast. We hope to be able to start as of September. Until then we are working on the technical preparations. We need to develop software, for example, in order to communicate over 5G with the provider. We will broadcast for six months and use that time mainly to see how the network is keeping up. What will happen to the bandwidth if we put a demanding net service next to it? That is the sort of thing we will be testing."

Together with VodafoneZiggo
VodafoneZiggo provides the 5G services for this pilot. The company joins forces with TNO. They have developed a technology to make parts of the network available. This is called network slicing. That is the technology Camerize will use in Delfzijl. For their users, this technology will mean a great deal for the quality of the broadcasts.