Nokia and Hololight Partner to Elevate XR Experiences with L4S Technology

Published: November 02, 2023 at 3:35 am Updated: November 02, 2023 at 3:35 am

In Brief

Nokia has entered into a collaboration with Hololight to streamline the extended reality (XR) landscape with L4S internet protocol.

Nokia today announced it has entered into a collaboration with enterprise XR solutions platform Hololight, to streamline the extended reality (XR) landscape with their latest high-throughput network —- L4S technology.

Hololight in partnership with Nokia, has conceived a proof-of-concept utilizing L4S to support high-quality, multi-user XR experiences in the face of real-world network traffic challenges. This pioneering collaboration between Nokia and Hololight is set to be unveiled in a live demonstration at the Brooklyn 6G Summit, taking place from October 31 to November 2.

Nokia said that in an era of ever-increasing demand for low-latency in immersive applications such as virtual reality (VR) and XR, the newly-developed internet protocol from Nokia’s Bell Labs, will deliver a consistent quality of experience for Hololight’s XR applications. The partnership also aims to enhance collaboration among multiple users in VR and augmented reality (AR) design spaces.

The L4S technology is an acronym for “low-latency, low-loss, scalable throughput,” and Nokia assets that it is a pivotal stride towards achieving high-performance real-time applications, especially cloud-rendered XR services.

Enhancing XR Application Latency Through L4S

The company said that the services will hinge on minimal latency for users to fully immerse themselves in the XR world. As a result, real-time applications would be able to use very high throughputs.

“For real-time interactive applications such as XR and VR, a temporary lower resolution is usually not even noticed, but extra delays and freezes are plainly frustrating for a user,” Koen De Schepper, Nokia Bell Labs Research Principal and L4S inventor told Metaverse Post. “L4S was designed from the start as a collaboration between the network and applications. L4S applications implement the Prague congestion control which allows the network to control their rates in a very smooth and real-time, responsive way without the need for delaying packets or dropping packets.”

For the first time, this proof-of-concept will rigorously test the scalability of L4S by connecting a multitude of XR users to the same infrastructure. L4S from Nokia Bell Labs, was designed to support the widespread deployment of real-time applications. With its paramount importance in the 5G-advanced era, Nokia plans to spearhead the standardization efforts for L4S within 3GPP Release 18.

“The 5G-driven L4S technology for enabling advanced XR applications is a very important aspect for industries to provide a scalable, a low-latency service in terms of monetization, and avoiding customer churn. L4S gives a way out of latency dilemma, allowing the rollout of services to a large customer base from the beginning, and gradually adding network resources that can follow the demand in a more reactive way,” added Nokia’s De Schepper.

Moreover, Nokia said that L4S plays a pivotal role in UNEXT, an innovative research initiative by Nokia Bell Labs. UNEXT aims to transform networks into self-managing, interactive operating systems eliminating traditional barriers that hinder network elements from interoperating.

“With network application symbiosis capabilities such as L4S, UNEXT allows the network to adapt its behavior, providing the best performance both for the XR applications and network alike. With these capabilities, beyond the actual communication, UNEXT transforms the network into an interactive, adaptive, and dynamic player in the value chain,” Azimeh Sefidcon, Head of Network Systems and Security Research at Nokia Bell Labs told Metaverse Post.

“Partnering with Nokia puts us at the forefront of 6G innovation. Together, we are excited to pioneer a solution that enables smooth and stable streaming of XR applications with a high number of active users, even in the most challenging environments, ensuring an unparalleled user experience,” said Philipp Landgraf, Senior Director of XR Streaming at Hololight. “The move to XR-based collaboration and digital prototyping is a monumental step towards reducing CO2 emissions by minimizing travel and waste, resulting in efficient production, minimized errors and a lighter environmental footprint.”

What’s Next for Nokia?

Nokia Bell Labs emphasized the significance of expanding the L4S ecosystem, particularly in the context of 5G-Advanced systems and beyond. Konstantinos Manolakis, Senior Device Research Specialist at Nokia Standards told Metaverse Post that L4S is currently being standardized as part of the 3GPP XR Work Item, together with further XR enablers.

“In the context of 6G, more advanced XR use cases are expected, more demanding in terms of throughput and low latency. L4S will continue as a XR enabling technology, beyond 5G-Adv (Rel-18) and towards 6G,” he added.

Likewise, Nokia Bell Labs’s De Schepper said that L4S has been scaled to be used by XR applications.

“Today, having a gigabit network connection still can risk video conferencing applications failing, which are using only a few megabits (using less than 1% of it),” said De Schepper. “L4S will give these real-time applications the confidence to really use the available gigabits, driving again the need for higher network capacities at scale.”

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Victor is a Managing Tech Editor/Writer at Metaverse Post and covers artificial intelligence, crypto, data science, metaverse and cybersecurity within the enterprise realm. He boasts half a decade of media and AI experience working at well-known media outlets such as VentureBeat, DatatechVibe and Analytics India Magazine. Being a Media Mentor at prestigious universities including the Oxford and USC and with a Master’s degree in data science and analytics, Victor is deeply committed to staying abreast of emerging trends.
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Victor Dey