What did Chinese operators show the world at the Winter Olympics?

This Winter Olympics is full of technological content. With the support of various cutting-edge technologies such as 5G, cloud computing, edge computing, AI, VR, AR, etc., the opening and closing ceremonies and the broadcast of the Winter Olympics will make this winter unique and full of warmth.

First commercial use of 5G at the Olympic Games

Compared with the PyeongChang Winter Olympics and the Tokyo Summer Olympics, the Beijing Winter Olympics realized the large-scale commercial use of 5G for the first time. As the official communication service partner of the Beijing Winter Olympics, China Unicom deployed thousands of 5G base stations to meet the needs of the Winter Olympics, forming a "one network" in two places and three competition zones. By applying a series of new technologies such as carrier aggregation and super uplink, the performance of the Winter Olympics 5G network has been further improved, which is sufficient to cope with the large business volume explosion in the Winter Olympics scenario.

The application of a series of new technologies has further enhanced the already powerful 5G network, with the peak 5G downlink rate in important venues reaching 1.5Gbps and the peak uplink rate reaching 600Mbps. These new technologies include 5G carrier aggregation, Massive MIMO, and super uplink.

It is worth mentioning that by using 5G slicing technology, operators can also provide menu-based service capabilities according to users' different requirements for 5G network speed, latency, etc. For example, 100M of the 200M 5G bandwidth along the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway is "cut" out for CCTV to use, thus realizing the live broadcast backhaul of CCTV's 5G+4K signal. The "slicing" technology ensures that the service usage perception of other users will not be affected after CCTV's exclusive use of resources.

This Winter Olympics has set new records in broadcasting, technology, content production and other aspects, and is the Winter Olympics with the highest ratings so far. Technologies such as ultra-high-definition signals and cloud broadcasting have brought viewers a strong sense of presence.

The "bullet time" special effects that can only be seen in movies can also be seen at the Beijing Winter Olympics. Through dozens of cameras to capture the athletes' movements in 360 degrees, and intelligent algorithm synthesis and modeling, the audience can play back from multiple angles and in all directions.

In addition, this Winter Olympics is the first in history to broadcast the opening and closing ceremonies live via 8K signals. 8K broadcasting uses the world's highest television broadcasting technology standard, and the bandwidth of 8K signals is 32 times that of HD signals. With the advantages of high speed, low latency, and large bandwidth, 5G has become the "protagonist" of the "Technology Winter Olympics".

Immersive VR experience of the Winter Olympics "metaverse"

Since the first appearance of VR technology at the Rio Olympics in 2016, the Olympic Games have also witnessed the development of VR technology. In order to allow users in front of the screen to have a viewing experience like being on the scene, China Mobile has carefully set up panoramic live broadcast props based on VR technology in multiple competition venues. For example, in the Wukesong Sports Center, 60 hanging cameras and 3 spherical cameras were installed to capture the wonderful moments of the athletes' games in 360° all-round without blind spots. VR viewing has become a more direct way to participate in the Winter Olympics through the cloud.

Based on the VR technology equipment in the venues, Mobile Cloud VR selected more than 40 major events for VR live broadcast during the Winter Olympics, covering many "top" players such as Gu Ailing, Wu Dajing, and Su Yiming, bringing a screen-breaking viewing experience to VR all-in-one users, and users can watch every detail of sliding, spinning, jumping, etc. In addition, Mobile Cloud VR also uses "sky box" technology to achieve the effect of venue simulation. Audiences can put on VR glasses and be in the stadium, directly hit the exciting moments, and experience the Winter Olympics in the metaverse.

During the Winter Olympics, China Mobile also brought live broadcasts of all-match and all-scenario ice and snow events, self-made content, short videos and other new perspectives on ice and snow sports through Migu Video, Mobaihe and video ringtones. In order to allow viewers to experience the ice and snow events more immersively, Migu Video, a subsidiary of China Mobile, also uses ultra-high-definition technologies such as 4K/8K, HDR Vivid, VR/XR, etc. to bring a truly shocking audio-visual experience; in the event broadcast, the AVS3 codec standard application and 360-degree panoramic shooting technologies are used to allow users to experience the wonderful moments in person.

It is worth mentioning that Migu Video also provides a more humanistic viewing environment - the "For You Who Can't Hear" intelligent subtitle function. This function integrates voice recognition and subtitle generation, and covers hundreds of events such as figure skating, short track speed skating, snowboarding, freestyle skiing, etc., breaking down communication barriers.

Live up to the mission and successfully complete the communication guarantee

In the romantic opening and closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, ensuring smooth wireless network is of utmost importance. In order to ensure a good network environment for the National Stadium at the opening ceremony of the ice and snow event, China Telecom carried out the optimization of the base stations in the Bird's Nest in advance to ensure that the 5G/4G signals inside and outside the venue have no dead spots and full coverage; in addition, it also specially built an IPTV Tianyi high-definition video service intelligent analysis system to monitor the live broadcast channel in real time to ensure smooth, clear and stable transmission of the live broadcast images of the programs.

At the closing ceremony, professional technical engineers from China Telecom optimized the monitoring of wireless network signals, inspected emergency AI cameras, emergency vehicle power supplies, base stations, optical cables, etc., and the security team was on duty on site for 14 hours, successfully completing the 4G and 5G wireless network security tasks.

It is reported that during this ice and snow event, China Telecom also provided the organizing committee with 800MHz trunking communication services, truly realizing the precise command of 800MHz trunking terminals with "one-touch communication, one-call, thousands of responses". During the guarantee period, China Telecom delivered more than 5,600 800M terminals (including backup machines) to the organizing committee, including terminal services, network services and event operation guarantee services, to meet the precise scheduling of various event sites.

For example, during the opening ceremony, from the gathering and entry of leaders, athletes, performers and audiences from various countries, to the opening ceremony performance, fireworks display, performance broadcast, and then to the withdrawal of personnel after the opening ceremony, commands were quickly issued through the 800-megabit cluster terminal. All opening ceremony support personnel responded quickly according to the commands, and each link was connected in an orderly manner, ensuring that the opening ceremony performance was carried out in an orderly manner without delay.

In order to ensure smooth communication, China Telecom also took the lead in carrying out low-temperature testing of cluster terminals to ensure that the terminals meet high-standard communication performance requirements such as operability, signal reception and battery life in low-temperature and cold environments.