Deutsche Telekom’s edge for cloud gaming

Deutsche Telekom believes its network gives it an edge in the emerging game-streaming market. 

The operator is trialling a cloud-based service similar to the likes of Google and Microsoft.

The operator already offers IP TV and music as part of its entertainment offerings and will decide if gaming will be the third component. The operator will launch its MagentaGaming cloud-based service in 2020.  

“Since 2017, the biggest market in entertainment is gaming,” says Dominik Lauf, project lead, MagentaGaming at Deutsche Telekom.

Market research firms vary in their estimates but the global video gaming market was of the order of $138 billion in 2018 while the theatrics and home entertainment market totalled just under $100 billion for the same period.  

Cloud Gaming 

In Germany, half the population play video games with half of those being young adults. The gaming market represents a valuable  opportunity to ‘renew the brand’ with a younger audience.

Until now, a user’s gaming experience has been determined by the video-processing capabilities of their gaming console or PC graphics card.

The advent of cloud-based gaming changes all that.  A user not only can access the latest game titles via the cloud, they no longer need to own state-of-the-art equipment for the ultimate gaming experience. Instead, video processing for gaming is performed in the cloud. All that the user needs is a display. Any display; a smartphone, tablet, PC or TV.  

Lauf says hardcore gamers typically spend over €1,000 each year on equipment, while some 45 per cent of all gamers can’t play the latest games at the highest display quality because their hardware is not up to the task.  “[With cloud gaming,] the entry barrier of hardware no longer exists for customers,” says Lauf.

However, for game-streaming to work, the onus is on the service provider to deploy hardware - dedicated servers hosting high-end graphics processing units (GPUs) - and ensure that the game-streaming traffic is delivered efficiently over the network.

Deutsche Telekom points out that while buffering is used for video or music streaming services, this isn't an option with gaming given its real-time nature.  

“Latency and bandwidth play a pivotal role within gaming,” says Lauf. “Connectivity counts here.”

Networking demands

Deutsche Telekom’s game-streaming service requires a 50 megabit-per-second (Mbps) broadband connection.

Gaming traffic requires between 30-40Mbps of capacity to ensure full graphics quality. This is over four times the bandwidth required for a video stream. “We can lower the bandwidth required [for gaming] but you will notice it when using a bigger screen,” says Lauf.

The operator is testing the bandwidth requirements its mobile network must deliver to ensure the required gaming quality.      

“With 5G, the bandwidth is more or less there, but bandwidth is not the only point, maybe the more important topic is latency,” says Lauf. The operator has recently launched 5G in five cities in Germany. 

An end-to-end latency of 50-80ms ensures a smooth gaming experience. A latency of 100ms decreases an individual’s game-play while a latency of 120ms noticeably impacts responsiveness.

Deutsche Telekom’s fixed network delivers a sub-50ms latency. However, the home environment must also be factored in: the home’s wireless network and signal coverage, as well as other electronic devices in the home, all can influence gaming performance.       

And it is not just latency that counts but jitter: the volatility of the latency. “The average may be below 50ms but if there are peaks at 100ms, it will impact your gameplay,” says Lauf. 

Moreover, the latency and jitter performance should ideally be consistent across the network; otherwise, it can give an unfair advantage to select users in multi-player games.   

5G and edge computing

The MegentaGaming trial is also being used to test how 5G and edge computing - where the servers and GPUs are hosted at the network edge - can deliver a sufficiently low jitter.

5G will provide more bandwidth than the operator’s existing LTE mobile network. This will not only benefit individual game players but also the size of group-gaming plays. At present, hundreds can play each other in a game but this number will grow, says Lauf. 

5G will also enable new features, such as network slicing, that will benefit low jitter, says Lauf.

“‘Edge’ is a fuzzy term,” says Lauf. “But we will build our servers in a decentralised way to ensure latency does not affect gamers.”

MobiledgeX, a Deutsche Telekom spin-out that focusses on cloud infrastructure, operates four data centres in Germany and is also testing GPUs. However, for the test phase of MagentaGaming, Deutsche Telekom is deploying its servers and GPUs at the network edge

Lauf says the complete architecture must be designed with latency in mind: “There are a lot of components that can increase latency.” Not only the network but the GPU run times and the storage run times.     

Deploying servers and GPUs at the network edge requires investment. And given that cloud gaming is still being trialled, it is too early to assess gaming’s business success. 

So how does Deutsche Telekom justify investing in edge infrastructure and will the edge be used for other tasks as well as gaming?

“This is also a focus of our trial, to see when are the server peak times in terms of usage,” says Lauf. “There are capabilities for other use cases on the same GPUs.”

The operator is considering using the GPUs for artificial intelligence tasks.

Cloud-gaming competition 

Microsoft and Google are also pursuing gaming-streaming services. 

Microsoft is about to launch a preview of xCloud - its Xbox cloud-based service - and has been accepting registrations in certain countries. 

Microsoft, too, recognises the importance of network latency and is working with operators such as SK Telecom in South Korea and Vodafone UK. It has also signed an agreement with T-Mobile, the US operator arm of Deutsche Telekom.

Meanwhile, Google is preparing its Stadia service which will launch next month. 

Lauf believes Deutsche Telekom has an edge despite such hyperscaler competition. 

“We are sure that with our high-quality network - our edge and 5G latency capabilities, and our last mile to our customer - we have an advantage compared to the hyperscalers given  how latency and bandwidth count,” he says. 

Gaming content also matters and the operator says it is in discussions with gaming developers that welcome the fact that there are alternatives to the hyperscalers’ platforms.  

“We are quite sure we can play a role,” concludes Lauf. “Even if we are not on the same global level of a Google, we will have a right to play in this business.” 

Game on!