go back to Events57th FITCE Congress, UK 2018
Delivery and Consumption of Digital Media
6-7 September 2018, MediaCityUK, Salford
S U M M A R Y
The 57th Federation of Telecommunications Engineers of the European Union (FITCE) Congress was hosted by the University of Salford at MediaCityUK and addressed the trend for online media streaming and its associated impact on transforming both the telecommunications and broadcasting industries. In so doing, it also sought to identify the challenges and opportunities arising from the consumption of digital media and its conveyance over fixed and mobile communication networks.
The context for the Congress was that the Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) providers are reporting significant growth in the number of subscribers to their services and are investing billions of dollars in the creation of new and original content. Equally, both fixed and mobile operators are reporting significant growth in the data volumes on their networks associated with both live and catch-up streamed video content. This growth is not only fuelled by the popularity of Over The Top (OTT) streaming services but also the move to High Definition (HD), High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Ultra-High Definition (UHD-4K) formats. MediaCityUK provided an ideal setting for this Congress for it is an international hub for technology, innovation and creativity being home to over 250 media and digital businesses including the BBC, ITV, Ericsson and dock10 thereby facilitating the bringing together of the telecommunications and broadcasting industries.
Welcoming delegates and their companions from across Europe, the Congress comprised a pre-event evening reception, keynote speakers, four paper presentation sessions, a technical visit, a formal gala dinner, a concluding panel discussion, an associated Companion Programme and concluded with the FITCE General Assembly meeting.
With keynote presentations from BT Sport, Ofcom, the University of Salford, BBC R&D and Huawei, and 15 technical papers, the Congress was able to focus on a number of key themes.
5G - a game changer for digital media?
The first 5G standard has been published and services are expected to go live in 2020. So what will 5G offer for the delivery of digital media and how will it drive consumption?
Future of media distribution
With an increasing usage and demand for online catch-up and OTT services as a primary means of distribution coupled to a move to all IP work flows, is the future all OTT?
Enhancing the viewer experience
How will the viewer experience continue to be influenced by the move to ever higher image definition (4K and beyond), the introduction of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality? What are the societal impacts of these new paradigms and their legal and regulatory implications?
Social Media, where next?
Social media already exerts a significant influence but what is the future potential for business, news media, user generated content, data mining and big data? What are the ongoing societal impacts ?
Next Generation Networks
Media consumption dominates both fixed and mobile network usage. A move to more flexible network architectures is therefore essential and so industry needs to embrace Fibre to the Home, Software Defined Networks and Network Functions Virtualisation.
The 57th FITCE Congress received important support from a range of sponsors. Registration was managed by the Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP), as the UK national association member of FITCE. Local telecommunications company, PENNINE were a Bronze sponsor, Total Telecom, BT Sport and UK5G Innovation Network were Media Partners and BT , EE and Huawei were Network operator and infrastructure partners. It is also a great pleasure to be working with dock10 who kindly offered delegates to the Congress a technical tour of their studio and production facilities in MediaCityUK.
All of the presentations were video recorded and these may be viewed online via this website. Addiitonally, some of the presenters have made available a version of their presentaion as a PDF download. The navigation buttons below will guide you to the appropriate pages.
Use the buttons below to access the FITCE Congress programme which contains the videos of the keynote and technical presentaitons, details of the Technical Panel and a detailed report on the overall Congress written by Ed Smith, BT Research Fellow, on behalf of FITCE.
Follow on social media .....