CHINA BUSINESS & ECONOMY
BBC’s Live 5G Broadcast Fails After Using Huawei Equipment
New media report also reveals China is rigging UK security tests in favor of Huawei
BY
NICOLE HAO
June 3, 2019 Updated: June 3, 2019
BBC, did two live TV broadcasts using
Huawei’s equipment that day. The first one was delayed by 15 minutes, while the second one was cut short after the image stopped displaying due to poor signals.
First Live Broadcast
5G is the latest mobile telecommunication technology, with speeds 10 to 100 times faster than 4G. 5G networks can connect 100 times the number of devices that 4G can, and supply 100 percent of coverage.
BBC
tried its first 5G live broadcast during the morning of May 30. Rory Cellan-Jones, a BBC technology correspondent, reported from Covent Garden in London, but could not broadcast on schedule after “the whole system went down.”
“We’d run out of data on the SIM card,” Cellan-Jones said.
Cellan-Jones explained that because using 5G takes up a lot of data, the SIM card on the BBC equipment soon ran out of storage space. He had to get a new SIM card with larger storage.
He
introduced on Twitter that BBC uses 5G terminal equipment from Huawei.
He added that the connection speed was not stable. “Walk a bit that way, it [the connection speed] might be higher; walk a bit this way, it might be lower.”
But in general, the quality of the broadcasted image was good.
Second Broadcast
At lunch time, BBC
tried 5G live broadcasting again in the same location.
Ten seconds after BBC News anchor Clive Myrie turned to journalist Sarah Walton at the scene, the image became blurry. At 13 seconds, the image was lost for about 1.5 seconds, then became unstable. At 42 seconds, the image was totally lost.
After another 13 seconds, BBC stopped the live broadcasting even though Walton was still talking about 5G. “Bizarrely, the 5G line isn’t working properly,” Myrie apologized.