First 5G Broadcast PlugFest by 5G-MAG brings developers together in Berlin

The first 5G Broadcast PlugFest organized by 5G-MAG took place from 9 to 11 June 2026 at Fraunhofer FOKUS in Berlin, bringing together infrastructure vendors, technology providers, software developers and operators to test the interoperability of 5G Broadcast equipment.

The event marks an important milestone: with 3GPP Release 19 now frozen, attention is shifting from standardisation to implementation and deployment, and interoperability across multi-vendor set-ups is a key part of that path — confidence that products from different manufacturers actually work together in real deployments doesn't come for free.

Over the three days, participating teams paired core networks and transmitters from different suppliers and worked through a shared test plan. Equipment vendors ENENSYS, Nakolos, Rohde & Schwarz and TRedess contributed cores and transmitters, while receiver platforms, middleware and application tools from across the ecosystem completed the end-to-end chain. The collaborative, hands-on format let engineering teams debug together in the room and compare notes against the specifications as they went.

Testing spanned the full delivery chain: core-to-transmitter interfaces, the radio layer across 3GPP Releases 14 to 19, and application-layer services including media streaming and public warning. A particular focus was on the newer functionality introduced in Releases 16 to 19 — time and frequency interleaving, CAS muting, CAS enhancements, and the additional subcarrier spacings and bands — since testing these more recently specified features in live, multi-vendor set-ups gives especially valuable early feedback, both to the engineers implementing them and to the standards community refining them.

Many multi-vendor combinations were brought up successfully and run end to end, demonstrating that cross-vendor 5G Broadcast is achievable today and providing practical feedback to implementers and the standards community alike.

5G-MAG thanks all the teams who took part, and the sponsors whose support made the event possible, including Nakolos and Qualcomm. The full report is available to members on the members' portal.