This year’s Highland Games in Perthshire begin this weekend (10 September) with a predicted in-person audience of 6,000 to be augmented by action being transmitted live using a local private shared spectrum 5G network at the International Broadcasting Conference (IBC) in Amsterdam where an estimated 40,000 dedicated technologists and engineers from the worldwide media community will also be able to watch.
The first Pitlochry Highland Games since 2018 also marks the 170th anniversary of the Games which features competitions including highland dancing, solo piping, tossing the caber, track & field, cycling and tug ‘o’ war.
Games Chieftain Charles Butter said the 5G trial shows “the high regard in which Pitlochry Highland Games are held, not just from the point of sporting excellence but also our wonderful location.”
The private 5G stand-alone network has been designed by technology spin-out company Neutral Wireless working alongside the University of Strathclyde’s Software Defined Radio (StrathSDR) engineering team and the Scotland 5G Centre rural testbed project. The project is trialling production over 5G for broadcasters including BBC Research & Development, BTSport, BT Media & Broadcast, TV2, Paramount, Olympic Broadcasting Services and RTÉ.
Paul Coffey, CEO of S5GC, said: "It is great to see that 5G capability can communicate the celebration of Scottish identity at the Pitlochry Highland Games to our broadcast colleagues in Amsterdam.
“This is a significant use case from our partners at the University of Strathclyde as it demonstrates the portability of a private 5G standalone 'network-in-a-box' and opens up numerous possibilities for future use of 5G technology in live broadcasts."
The technology will be housed in Neutral Wireless’ fully portable 5G Non-Public Network-In-a-Box (NIB) with antenna, situated in a corner of the balcony at the main event pavilion. According to the company, its technology will ensure that while dancers perform to bagpipes and cabers fly through the air, the games will be provided with a dedicated bandwidth using shared spectrum, with no interference or capacity issues affecting the quality of transmission even in big crowds where many consumers and visitors are using their mobile phones and the local WiFi.
Mark Smith, the head of IBC’s accelerator media innovation programme, added: “Pitlochry will help us show that 5G remote production can happen anywhere. We are trialling in four remote areas of the world, in Ireland, in Kenya, New Zealand, as well as Pitlochry, which provides the perfect opportunity to focus on a private 5G network relaying the learnings to the worldwide media & entertainment technology community.”
