After teasing LTE Broadcast way back in late 2013, AT&T says that it’s finally going to test the service out this month.
AT&T has announced that it’s going to conduct its first on-site trial of LTE Broadcast at the college football national championship game between the Oregon Ducks and Ohio State Buckeyes on January 12. LTE Broadcast is a service that sends out content — whether it be music, video, or software — over a select bit of spectrum that only carries that content. That content is then beamed to multiple users at once in a designated area and time. The goal is to ensure that everyone has a lag-free experience because they’re all getting the content sent to them at once rather than all of them trying to access the content individually. This also frees up the other spectrum not being used for LTE Broadcast for other users.
AT&T says that LTE Broadcast could be used in the future for several different purposes other than video. It suggests that the service could let universities beam lectures to students unable to attend the real thing, or to send software updates to Internet of Things devices like connected cars.
LTE Broadcast sounds like a pretty nifty service because not only is it meant to improve the content experience of users that it’s beaming stuff to, but it also is good for other folks since the regular network won’t get congested by all of the users trying to access the same video, music, or whatever else. If you’re a fan of pretty infographics, you can find one about LTE Broadcast at the AT&T link below.
