Is Music in the Air? Evaluating 4G and 5G Support for the Internet of Musical Things

The full potential of the Internet of Musical Things (IoMusT) paradigm can be fully unleashed only in the presence of widespread, reliable wireless connectivity, allowing musicians to connect their smart instruments (almost) anywhere they are. For this reason, we propose a realistic, end-to-end communication architecture for a IoMusT system based on public fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks that considers a networked music performance use case, and we introduce a model for the resulting system. We define high-level service requirements and key performance indicators for the network’s connect-compute architecture. We evaluate our solution via system-level simulations using the well-known 5G-LENA/ns3 and Simu5G/OMNeT++ frameworks. We found that operating 6 or more IoMusT devices over a fourth-generation (4G) network results in a worst-case latency well over 20 ms for more than 90% of the packet transmissions, while losing more than 10% of packets. On the other hand, operating the same number of devices over a 5G network reduces the latency significantly. After testing our findings both in single-cell and in multi-cell scenarios, assuming a transient in the upgrade of mobile network infrastructures from 4G to 5G, we consider a E-UTRA-NR dual connectivity (EN-DC) scenario, where a 5G base station serves a subset of the users of a 4G cell. Furthermore, we conducted a user study where musicians were asked to assess their playing experience during simulated 4G- and 5G-based networked music performances. The results of the simulations and of the user study consistently indicate that the use of 5G technology improves performance significantly, and advocate the need for a 5G framework to fully support the IoMusT.