$900,000 awarded to Israeli-American mobile video tech partnership

Cellular video traffic is expected to grow by an annual rate of about 55% through 2021.

By SHARON UDASIN
Updated: MARCH 14, 2017 23:58
A girl takes photos on a smartphone (photo credit: REUTERS)
A girl takes photos on a smartphone
(photo credit: REUTERS)
The Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD) is awarding a technology partnership $900,000 to improve mobile-video quality and significantly reduce resources required for transmitting video on mobile networks.
Rehovot-based Vimmi Communications – a mobile-video innovator – is collaborating with Texas-based Tech Mahindra to develop an advanced media delivery network for mobile operators, the companies announced in a statement on Tuesday.
Cellular video traffic is expected to grow by an annual rate of about 55% through 2021.
Even today, mobile operators are struggling with enormous volumes of video and are seeking scalable solutions to deliver high-quality video, according to the statement.
“We’re excited about winning this prestigious award from the BIRD Foundation,” said Vimmi founder and co-CEO Eitan Koter.
“Our collaboration with Tech Mahindra enables us to bring to market cutting-edge solutions that feature the highest possible video delivery efficiency and video performance at highly competitive pricing.”
The partners were among eight Israeli-US tech teams chosen in December to receive conditional grants of up to one million dollars from BIRD.
Vimmi and Tech Mahindra’s media delivery network solution will offer mobile operators cloud computing capabilities and information technology services based on “Multi-access Edge Computing.” MEC enables operators to open their radio access networks to authorized third parties, allowing them to more flexibly launch new applications at the edge of a network.
By deploying video services at a radio edge, in closer proximity to users, the team hopes to deploy more powerful delivery infrastructure for mobile networks.
Their solution features technologies from Vimmi’s mobile-video delivery network and dynamic content distribution algorithm, as well as from Mahindra’s radio network information service analytics. The technology can reduce from 70% to 90% of mobile backhaul – traffic from the base station to the core network – according to the companies. It can also decrease video round-trip time, the time required for a signal to travel from source to destination and back.
“Mobile edge computing is an emerging standard that helps mobile operators to meet the growing consumer demand for economical, high-quality video experiences,” said Peeyush Goyal, senior vice president for network services at Tech Mahindra.
“By integrating Vimmi’s video-aware mobile delivery network with our radio network information service analytics, we are able to deliver a breakthrough service in mobile-video transport performance.”
The BIRD Foundation was established in 1977 with grants from the US and Israeli governments.
It is managed cooperatively by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Israeli Economy Ministry’s Israel Innovation Authority.
To date, BIRD has provided grants for 940 industrial research and development projects, and generates its funding income from repayments by successful projects, as well as interest earned on endowment grants.