Connecting the beautiful game – Soccer’s 5G goal
grew up in Asia and Africa. There, soccer, what we knew as football, was irrepressible. Everyone was a fan. It was also the great equalizer – not just confined to green manicured stadiums, but played everywhere. After school, a bunch of us would challenge neighborhood rivals to a friendly match. We played on the city roads, front yards, in abandoned fields, we even played on the beach.
As summer approached, we eagerly awaited the start of the big international matches. I spent many a summer huddled around a small B/W TV set, or with an AM/FM radio stuck to my small ears, cheering the teams. Being a fan was pretty low tech in those days! But soccer brought us together, and belonged everywhere.
So why am I writing about soccer on a technology blog? Well, if you paid attention to the crowd in any recent matches you will understand. Fans no longer carry their handheld AM/FM radios, but now use mobile smartphones for a multitude of tasks. They not only capture the important moments of the game, but take selfies, post on social media, and some even watch the replay while still at the stadium! Let’s face it, today’s current 4G mobile technology is light years ahead of B/W TVs and AM radios. Let me explain what I mean by this: during the final 2014 World Cup Match in Brazil, over 1.5 TB of mobile data was generated inside the stadium. You may ask, how much is 1.5 TB? It’s as though every person inside the stadium posted 35 photos online each!
Mobility and the current 4G technology has already changed our lives, so you may be wondering how much better could 5G be? Look no further than soccer!
5G will improve on 4G by bringing extreme speed, more capacity, and lower latency to wireless broadband. It will undoubtedly transform how we use our smartphones, but also enable us to connect with all kinds of things we don’t typically connect with today and provide mobile access in places we don’t expect it today.
So how will this change your soccer experience? Close your eyes and imagine attending a soccer game in 2021 when 5G has been deployed…
With 5G, there will be enough capacity in the stadium for fans to stream high quality video to fans in other sections – imagine Periscope on steroids, thousands of fans streaming and sharing their respective views from their seats to others in the same match.
With 5G, fans could also use their smartphones to tap into 360 degree ultra-high definition virtual reality cameras that are filming all around the stadium. Now they can experience the match from all these vantage points, as though they had changed seats. Just imagine watching the match-winning goal from different angles a few moments after it was scored. Or keeping tabs on a rival match in a separate stadium while at your seat, singing your team song!
And for fans at home, fret not! You would have the same experience, viewing the match in 360 degrees from multiple points of view, just like you were there.
With 5G, even your clothes could be connected and make you part of game in all new ways. Imagine everyone in the stadium wearing a connected hat or shirt infused with LED lights all changing color together, in synchrony with a scored goal, or how hard the ball was kicked. Every night game could have light shows that today are reserved for special events like Olympic ceremonies, with the fans literally part of the show.
If FIFA allowed, even the game ball and players could be connected, enabling you to get near real-time information and analytics about the speed, rotation, height of the ball and more at the match, in your seat, and on your smartphone! Graphical analytics on TV would receive these new stats too giving commentators even more data.
With the current wireless standard, these capabilities are just emerging, and could never scale to thousands of fans in a stadium. With 5G, these experiences will be commonplace, expected, and accessible to more people in more places … just like soccer.
This week at matches in Philadelphia, Sprint and Ericsson will show the first glimmers of what 5G will bring. We are streaming multiple ultra-high definition 4K video streams over a live 5G wireless signal, including a live 4K camera stream from the Sprint Fan Zone. Note that this isn’t in a lab, or some protected environment, this is the parking lot of Lincoln Financial Field, with hundreds of soccer fans milling about!
We’re also telling fans the story of 5G and how it will change their soccer experience, both at home and at the game. Fun, interactive games simulate the connected ball and some of the other experiences we outlined above.
5G is still a few years from having a final standard, but is already able to provide gigabit speeds in real world environments. We are excited by the possibilities of how 5G will enable the Networked Society at live events, and ensure soccer continues to bring us together wherever we are.
