Democratic National Convention, August 25-28, 2008: a first-time event for the telecommunications industry: HDTV at 1 Mbps via WiMAX for the first time by a national level broadcaster, Denver ABC-affiliate, KMGH. The broadcaster utilized WMX Systems’ WiMAX to solve a real-world problem, which was to remotely upload news events during the convention efficiently, economically, and with a short set-up time.
While this development has far-reaching implications for the broadcast TV industry, it has a number of applications for the enterprise as well. Firstly, by using a SUV-mounted, one-pound WiMAX subscriber station, KMGH spared itself the expense of a satellite or microwave truck to cover the DNC’s daily press conference at the Colorado Convention Center. The precedence set by the event is that any news gatherer needs only a digital video camera, an encoding device to compress the video and a WiMAX connection to upload and distribute that content via the Internet. This is potentially disruptive to national networks with billions of dollars invested in spectrum and infrastructure.
Secondly, there are many implications and applications outside that primary industry (broadcast TV in this case). That same HDTV over WiMAX technology can be applied to enterprise videoconferencing to create a lifelike telepresence not possible with previous videoconferencing technology. Other applications include video surveillance, distance learning, telemedicine, medical imaging and residential HDTV. These broader industry applications alone could amount to a $12.5 billion market by 2014.
Get the white paper at: http://www.MindCommerce.com/Publications/WiMAX_HDTV.php
