Implementation of 5G Experimentation Environment for Accelerated Development of Mobile Media Services and Network Applications.

5G network technology can offer major benefits to the Media & Entertainment (M&E) sector in addressing the challenges associated with production and delivery of mobile, IP-driven media services, such as smart media production, 4K/8k video streaming, and live virtual reality. The massive growth in demand for such advanced services has created the need for innovative experimentation facilities. These can support the M&E industry in continually enhancing user experience and creating efficiencies in how content is produced and delivered across mobile networks. Such support is the core goal of the H2020-funded 5GMediaHUB project, which aims to accelerate the testing and validation of innovative 5G-enabled media applications and Network Applications, through an open, integrated and fully featured experimentation facility. This will significantly reduce the service creation lifecycle and minimise time-to-market, thus enhancing the competitiveness of facility users. 5GMediaHUB will create an elastic, secure and trusted multi-tenant service execution and Network Application development environment, based on an open, cloud-based architecture and APIs. The project will integrate this testing and validation system with two well-established 5G testbeds at CTTC, Spain and Telenor, Norway. In this article, we first introduce the key features of the 5GMediaHUB experimentation facility. These features ensure effective operation of advanced media applications over 5G, and support developers in minimising application performance uncertainties prior to widescale commercial deployment. Next, the deployment and implementation of the 5GMediaHUB infrastructure is presented, before the deployment and validation of the project’s use cases are discussed. These use cases will explore the topics of Interactive Media, Content Creation and Media Distribution, all enabled through advanced 5G connectivity.