Verizon is hoping to use the upcoming Super Bowl to showcase the power of LTE. The carrier is demoing LTE Broadcast technology that can make more efficient use of available bandwidth at large events. 

Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services (eMBMS) is the technical specification that the 3GPP included Release 9 of LTE. eMBMS has been standardized in various groups of 3GPP as part of LTE release 9.

Craig Miller, vice president of worldwide marketing for Sequans, which has been working with Verizon on the chipset side of things, said the LTE broadcasting is good way for Verizon to show off services that can only be delivered over an LTE network. 

Verizon Wireless on Wednesday began a 5-day live demo of LTE Broadcast at Bryant Park in New York. The carrier will be streaming live NFL content to tablets in the “Verizon Power House” set up in Bryant Park using LTE Broadcast technology provided by Sequans. 

Sequans is one of only two chipmakers providing LTE chips for this demo. Alcatel-Lucent supplied the underlying 4G LTE network equipment for the demonstration, while Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3, which Verizon is demonstrating the technology on, is supported by Qualcomm Technologies Inc., which has provided both the Snapdragon 800 processor as well as the middleware that enables the multicast content to be received by these devices. 

Miller said Sequans has been working with Verizon on the project for a little over a year. 

“I think what’s most exciting for Verizon is that LTE broadcast is a way for them to most efficiently use the spectrum that they have,” Miller said.

Miller said this week’s demo is just that. He said that recieving the content when it becomes commerically available would most likely require a carrier-provided software update for it to work on a handset. 

“The device itself does require broadcast middleware…This isn’t something that you’d just go download from Google Play,” he said.