3D Visual Communications

10.5 3D Video over 4G Networks

As discussed in Chapter 6, fourth generation mobile networks provide a number of important improvements from the preceding 3G networks [33]. Among other improvements, 4G is capable of delivering connections at very high data rates (with target speeds of 100 Mbps or better). Circuit switching will not be supported in 4G networks, as they will be entirely based on an all-IP architecture. Consequently, it is expected that a major part of the total traffic will be from different IP-based multimedia services, such as voice over IP and video streaming. To support the large variety of services over the same IP architecture, 4G systems provide different mechanisms such as differentiated classes of service for varied quality of service (QoS) support and improved security to the end users. Recall from Chapter 6 that, depending how strict is the classification of a mobile system into the “4G” category, the two main 4G standards can be considered to be 3GPP LTE (long term evolution) and IEEE802.16e or their respective evolutions LTE-A (long term evolution – advanced) and IEEE 802.16m WiMAX (sometimes called WiMAX 2). Also, recall from Chapter 6 that, in broad terms, both families of standards share many similarities. Both standards are based on OFDM technology with low latency (e.g., by defining a 10 ms frame in LTE). The use of OFDM presents advantages in terms of high bit rate data transmission (due to the good performance in multipath environments) and results ...