Vodafone Group hailed the potential of a Nokia-pioneered internet technology to change the game for broadband latency, a development it stated could ultimately act as the foundation for remote healthcare and industrial uses.

The operator highlighted opportunities around online gaming, remote surgery, connected and autonomous vehicles, and smart factories following a trial at one of its UK facilities of the low latency, low loss and scalable (L4S) technology pioneered by Nokia Bell Labs.

Vodafone stated latency was cut from 550 milliseconds to 12 milliseconds when a standard laptop was connected by Wi-Fi and 1 millisecond using an ethernet cable.

Gavin Young, head of the Fixed Access Centre of Excellence with Vodafone, said L4S is “an exciting technology with huge potential” for delivering high-quality broadband.

Vodafone stated the technology is suitable for mobile broadband along with fixed. It is backed by standards body the Internet Engineering Task Force and targets “queuing delays”, a “significant source of peak latency” and the “scourge of most serious gamers”.

Azimeh Sefidcon, Nokia Bell Labs head of Network Systems and Security Research, said the trial results were “highly encouraging” and proved L4S would “unshackle any real-time application” typically hindered by high latency.

She referred to videoconferencing, “cloud gaming, AR and even the remote operations of drones” as possible uses which would benefit from L4S.

Nokia previously demonstrated the potential of L4S for XR uses in conjunction with software company Hololight.