Huawei unveiled its new convergent video solution, Huawei Envision, at Operations Transformation Forum 2016, which supports operators as they develop video as a primary service to drive revenue.

Song Xiaolong, president of the company’s digital services product line, said that video has become part of human’s lifestyle, new video demands arise, and that it’s a “golden time for the business”.

The 1.0 era, when video was regarded as a value-added service, is over, he said, noting that an increasing number of operators see video as a fundamental service, changing their development strategies from data network centric to video network centric.

According to industry analysis, as the demand of video service is exploding, video traffic will account for 80% traffic in the whole pipe to 2020.

Video service has expanded from entertainment video to communication video and industry video, including applications like security protection and city monitoring, with vast amounts of user-generated video content. This evolution has changed the game for operators. “The industry is now in the video 2.0 era, with video a fundamental telecoms service,” he said.

In the video 2.0 era, technologies such as 4K, UHD, virtual reality, artificial reality and cloudification are quickly moving into the mainstream, delivering an enhanced user experience. “Business models are more diverse, and video services modes including broadband monetisation, experience monetisation and content monetisation tap into the potential of the video market.”

The Envision platform uses a cloud architecture to enable operators to quickly develop a video ecosystem. Envison cloud enables operators to launch video service quickly. Song said the Envision ecosystem assists operators in building a content portfolio, video platform and support for devices, all based on industry standards.

In addition, with the massive amounts of video traffic, the network needs to be optimised, which requires a lot of expertise.

A video platform, he insisted, must provide a great user experience, openness, a convergent cloud platform and smart operations.

Envision Cloud enables quick service launch and business success through cloud services, and enables video capability openness.