Toward a Network Slice Design for Ultra High Definition Video Broadcasting in 5G

In recent decades there has been a surge in wireless video broadcast/multicast traffic resulting from the emergence of new applications and smart terminals. However, the closely-coupled network architecture and separate source channel coding scheme restrict the development of video broadcast/multicast. Network slicing eliminates the restriction of embedding MBMS into the 3G/LTE frame structure. In this article, a novel UHD slice is proposed, which abstracts and virtualizes physical resources into virtual network functionality. A hardware virtualization mechanism is proposed and designed to achieve both high efficiency and flexibility. With the capability offered by network slicing, a MIMO hybrid digital analog (HDA) scheme is proposed to address the heterogeneity of both channel condition and antenna number to approach network capacity. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme can obtain perceptual video quality commensurate with channel and antenna, and achieve high network efficiency.