Ericsson joins top global players to drive LTE Broadcast at Mobile World Congress 2015

• Leading mobile operators, content providers and device vendors to share best practices at LTE Broadcast User Group meeting at MWC 2015
• Ericsson joins Facebook, the GSA, the GSMA, INDYCAR, Intel, KPN, Qualcomm Technologies, Telstra and Verizon, among participating companies
• Ericsson to showcase a number of LTE Broadcast live demos with new use cases and functionalities, along with ecosystem partners

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) is to join with leading mobile operators, content providers and device manufacturers to share best practices in LTE Broadcast. Ericsson will team up with companies including Facebook, the GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association), the GSMA, INDYCAR, Intel, KPN, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, Telstra and Verizon, to convene an LTE Broadcast User Group at Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona.

The group will act as a forum for the exchange of experiences and best practices on the establishment and operation of LTE Broadcast services. The intention is to promote the use of LTE Broadcast more widely in the industry and to catalyze the development of an ecosystem around the service.

Mobile video traffic is growing rapidly and expected to make up 55 percent of all mobile data traffic by 2020. LTE Broadcast is attracting significant and growing industry traction as a method for making the best use of existing network resources and available spectrum to introduce new video services and reduce the strain on the network.

Mobile operators and service and content providers can benefit from new revenue opportunities, service differentiation and more efficient distribution of popular media content sought by multiple subscribers. A large number of trials and field deployments worldwide have already proven the viability of the technology and demonstrated new use cases and business models.

Dan Warren, Senior Director of Technology, GSMA, says: "The principal objective of the User Group is to share the best practices that will spur industry growth and widespread adoption as we enter a new era of personalized media content. Users want anytime, anywhere, any device access to their media and entertainment and LTE Broadcast can be a key technology to enable delivery of popular content in an optimal way. It can relieve some of the heavy traffic burden that operators would otherwise have to support."