Efficient delivery of audiovisual content to mobile devices combining 5G broadcast and CDN technologies

The ‘5G Broadcast profile’ defined under the umbrella of 3GPP specifications, also known as FeMBMS, offers a new set of opportunities enabling innovative services and creating an impulse for advances of the entire media sector. Indeed, content providers and broadcast operators are actively involved in several worldwide research projects investigating to what extent 5G can represent the new paradigm in the media landscape for large-scale TV content delivery towards personal consumer devices. In this respect, the present paper aims at providing a comprehensive overview of an extensive trial showing the potentialities of the cutting-edge combination of 5G Broadcast and CDN technologies for linear broadcast and broadband distribution. The considered use cases refer to specific "Live Events": TV contents, including live streams captured by means of a 5G remote production and VR360 content for full immersive experiences, are distributed via 5G Broadcast to handheld devices and vehicular infotainment systems, implementing seamless switching between broadcast and broadband delivery to offer an uninterrupted viewer experience.