AT&T announced it will trial LTE Broadcast at the College Football Championship at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on Monday.
The carrier will use the technology to give customers with compatible devices access to additional feeds, alternate camera angles or bonus footage. The hope is that by offering extra content via one data stream over LTE Broadcast, AT&T can minimize network congestion within the stadium.
AT&T’s initial trial comes about one year after Verizon Wireless tested out its own LTE Multicast technology at the 2014 Super Bowl.
Verizon last year indicated it’s still on schedule to launch by mid-2015 an LTE Multicast TV service. Chris Carey, CPO at Verizon Digital Media Services, said the carrier’s offering will leverage the OnCue assets it acquired from Intel to launch a virtual Multichannel Video Program Distributor or a pay-TV service for mobile.
AT&T says the technology could be used in the future for applications like large-scale software updates to smartphones and the wider Internet of Things (IoT) including connected home and car.
Qualcomm has also begun trials of LTE broadcast. During its developer conference last September, the company released its LTE Broadcast SDK and announced a partnership with Facebook to use the technology for the social network’s frequent software updates.
