VIENNA—Big Blue Marble has announced that its Nakolos platform is the first end-to-end 5G Broadcast solution worldwide to implement the complete feature set introduced with 3GPP Release 19, achieved in collaboration with ecosystem partners Bitstem, TRedess and SYES.

The milestone follows two years of active standardization contributions with organizations including the European Broadcasting Union and Broadcast Networks Europe, and for the first time enables broadcasters and broadcast infrastructure providers to validate and deploy all major Release 19 enhancements in real-world environments, Big Blue Marble said.

U.S. broadcasters are also considering the use of 5G in ATSC 3.0, with many low-power TV broadcasters advocating a switch from ATSC 1.0 to 5G Broadcast after 1.0 sunsets.

Built on a carrier-grade, 3GPP-native architecture, Nakolos has evolved continuously from Release 14 through Release 19, according to Big Blue Marble. The platform now supports a complete set of new capabilities that directly address the economic and operational realities of 5G Broadcast rollout, including Time Frequency Interleaving (TFI), which enables the reuse of existing transmission sites while improving signal robustness; CAS-Muting functionality, which allows existing DVB-T2 infrastructure to be repurposed for 5G Broadcast transmission, substantially reducing initial deployment costs; and support for the new early-deployment frequency bands B112, targeting the U.S. market, and B113, targeting Europe and other global markets.

In combination with Release 19-compatible transmitter solutions from TRedess and SYES, and the new Bitstem 5GR receiver platform, released in conjunction with this announcement, customers can now validate and deploy complete interoperable 5G Broadcast chains under real operating conditions rather than in isolated proof-of-concept environments.

“Release 19 represents a concrete step forward for commercial 5G Broadcast, not a future promise,” said Johann Mika, chief innovation officer at Big Blue Marble. “The features introduced in this release give network operators a credible path to cost-efficient deployments using infrastructure they already have. With Nakolos, they can begin that transition today, ahead of the first generation of commercial 5G Broadcast-enabled consumer devices.”

Devices should be commercially available within the next few years, said Big Blue Marble, which is positioning Nakolos “as the platform for operators who need to be infrastructure-ready before mass-market adoption begins.”

Introduction
The Holy Grail of spectrum planning is finding the most efficient transmission path for the most used data.  In today’s digital world, this data can range from NBA basketball games to enhanced GPS coordinates to 3D maps for autonomous cars.  International and domestic spectrum czars have recognized that flexible channel use is the licensing key, and U.S. broadcasters have jumped at the opportunity.  While continuing to provide public interest-based video programming, they are now fully embracing a new transmission standard: ATSC 3.0, aka NextGen Broadcasting.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute, with help from the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), has cobbled together a different option: the so-called “5G Broadcast System.”  5G Broadcast is built on the existing unicast 4G LTE waveform.  It is far from “new.” Despite the hype (and money) surrounding these two options—ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast—they are not equal. Is this Betamax vs. VHS? Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD? PlayStation vs. Xbox? Or is this something more dynamic? Which is better? Read on. (Spoiler alert: it’s ATSC 3.0!)

Background
Technological advances and audience demand have pushed past plain-old linear program services. Free over-the-air (OTA) transmissions are giving way to paid, on-demand services, both physically connected (cable, fiber, phones, internet) and wirelessly connected (satellites, cellular and WiFi). Those have been, by and large, inefficient, one-to-many, dedicated, unicast services.    

U.S. broadcasters, recognizing their inherent advantage of robust, one-to-many, high power/high tower (HPHT) broadcast capabilities, have now added fundamental enhancements. Those include transmissions using the same “language” of the internet—Internet Protocol (IP)—and new frequency modulation and coding technologies for reliable mobile reception. They have also solved the challenge of delivering hyper-localized content to different parts of a community. 

The new capabilities of ATSC 3.0 are elegant, efficient, and evolvable, aligning perfectly with the increased demand for multimedia content over mobile devices, which have swamped conventional cellular unicast networks. For television broadcasters, the ‘ALL IP’ standard and associated revenue projections have stoked the imaginations of those looking for whole new business opportunities.  

Meanwhile some entrenched wireless players (e.g. Qualcomm and Ericsson) are hyping approaches and technologies that facially appear to focus on similar objectives. While this reinforces the idea of additional revenue opportunities in mobile and datacasting, the allure is essentially illusory. Yes, they both provide IP transport, are more efficient than previous iterations and provide enhanced content.  But the similarities end at the physical layer: The ATSC 3.0 system is dramatically more efficient, robust, mobile, and evolvable.

Here’s why.

ATSC 3.0 – NextGen Broadcasting
NextGen Broadcasting is the most advanced digital terrestrial broadcast standard designed for over-the-air reception. It delivers an extraordinarily improved viewing experience, supporting ultra-high-definition high dynamic range (HDR) content, immersive audio, interactivity, and other advanced features to both fixed and mobile devices. 

It also enables use of the broadcast spectrum for a host of new data services. It was designed from the outset to offer multiple simultaneous wireless-based services in addition to broadcast television. It simultaneously accommodates fixed, portable, and mobile use cases, allowing flexible spectrum utilization tailored to various new platforms. And the ATSC 3.0 standard is adaptable for different use cases in different countries. 

At the heart of the ATSC 3.0 standard is System Discovery Signaling—the so-called “Bootstrap.”  It serves as the universal entry point into the broadcast waveform, ensuring that all receive devices identify and decode each unique signal, even those yet to be defined. This “evolvability” attribute is key to ATSC 3.0 ability to expand and adapt to support emerging offerings.

ATSC 3.0 Key Features

• Ultra-High-Definition (UHD) and Immersive Audio: ATSC 3.0 supports UHD resolutions with higher image quality and immersive audio formats, enhancing the overall viewing experience.
  
• Hybrid Broadcast-Broadband: It seamlessly integrates OTA broadcasting with broadband, enabling interactive content, targeted advertising, and other data-related features.
  
• Advanced Emergency Infomation: The robust bootstrap permits triggers for advanced emergency alerting that can wake up devices at very low signal levels, enabling the delivery of rich media supplements to target geolocations.
  
• Interactive Services: Viewers can access interactive content, on-demand video, and personalized services through the hybrid capabilities of ATSC 3.0.
  
• Data Delivery as a Service: IP transport and one-to-many architecture of the high power/high tower broadcast service provides efficient delivery of common data including video offloading, enhanced GPS offerings, automobile telematics delivery and IoT support services.
  
• Efficient and Flexible Broadcast/Multicast: OTA broadcast, native to ATSC 3.0, enables efficient data delivery to multiple users of fixed and portable/mobile services simultaneously.

5G Broadcast
In Europe, the search for an IP-based solution for fixed and mobile broadcasting gained momentum when the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) Project shifted its focus to DVB-I (IP content delivery). Activities like those of 5G-Xcast, 5G-MAG identified needs and uses of IP-based delivery.  5G Broadcast emerged as a multicast technology specified by the 3GPP, designed to provide broadcast and multicast services over various networks. 

(Read more: What is 5G Broadcast?)

To be clear—5G Broadcast is based on the old 4G LTE waveform. Over the past few years, 3GPP has tried to meet the challenges of the OTA broadcast environment. But, despite work to better support OTA broadcast environments, efforts to improve the physical layer of the underlying 4G LTE Broadcast platform (time and frequency interleaving as an example) have been rejected and/or withdrawn, including the latest Release from 3GPP.

5G Broadcast Key Features:

1. Efficient Multicast: 5G broadcast uses multicast transmission, efficiently delivering data to multiple users simultaneously, reducing the network load compared to unicast streaming to individual users.
   
2. Content Delivery Efficiency: It efficiently distributes live events, emergency alerts, software updates, and other high-demand content to many users as a “one-to-many” service.
   
3. Cellular Network Integration: 5G broadcast could seamlessly integrate with existing 5G cellular networks, enabling mobile network operators to provide content services without significant infrastructure changes.
   
4. Broadcast Mode: It operates in broadcast mode where many users need access to the same content concurrently.

Comparing the Two
There has been considerable hype suggesting that these two technologies are roughly equivalent and that 5G Broadcast has an edge given it is a 3GPP standard. While both technologies employ IP transport and one-to-many wireless distribution technologies using the same modulation scheme, the similarities largely end there. 

The implied notion that, because 5G Broadcast is a 3GPP standard and in phones today, it somehow magically opens the market to hundreds of millions of devices compatible with 5G wireless reception is wishful thinking. Here are a half dozen reasons why ATSC wins out:

1. ATSC 3.0 has the Bootstrap: Absent from 5G Broadcast, the real technological magic of the Bootstrap is its ability to discover and identify a near infinite number of different signals (including those that have yet to be defined) and pass only the needed one to the specific receive device, thereby enabling a host of new services. More significantly, the robust bootstrap carries triggers for advanced emergency alerting that can wake up devices at very low signal levels—think deep indoors.
   
2. ATSC 3.0 has better error correction: Better error correction means a more reliable signal than 5G Broadcast. The two transmission standards are vastly different in performance. 5G Broadcast employs a suboptimal waveform.
   
3. ATSC 3.0 is “robust by design” in mobile environments: ATSC 3.0 outperforms 5G Broadcast in mobile environments with fast fading channels. Its sophisticated time interleaver provides a 3 dB to 11 dB performance advantage, depending on vehicle speeds. 5G Broadcast has worse pedestrian (<3 kph) performance and terrible mobile (Doppler) performance above 10 kph since it has NO bit interleaving. This may be one reason why older versions of 5G Broadcast have been discarded by mobile operators.
   
4. ATSC 3.0 is compatible with IMT Services: Claims that the ATSC 3.0 physical layer is incompatible with International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) services are misleading. ASTC 3.0 has demonstrated interworking at the IP level, and major mobile ecosystem stakeholders have endorsed this for future 3GPP standards activity. If differing physical layers were a real issue, WiFi (an IEEE standard), as an example, would similarly be an implementation problem.
   
5. ATSC 3.0 can share IMT resources: The assertion that only 5G Broadcast can share IMT resources is overstated. ATSC 3.0 can also achieve this through device-level solutions and network topology adjustments. While there are minor challenges any standard would face in integration at the device level (antenna size, receiver front-end, band-filtering as examples), there are solution paths at the device level (e.g., the MarkONE phone). Notably, there are no commercial phones today that support either 5G Broadcast or ATSC 3.0.
   
6. The cost of adding ATSC 3.0 to chips is negligible: While ATSC 3.0 is not yet integrated into IMT device system-on-chip silicon, the cost of adding an ATSC 3.0 demodulator is negligible compared to the incremental cost of mobile chipsets. The front-end frequency tuner, filters, and antenna(e) are common to either ATSC 3.0 or 5G Broadcast. 

Conclusion
In technology comparisons, it's crucial to separate what we think we know from the facts. 5G Broadcast has some visceral appeal:  Why not simply integrate and extend broadcast into the already existing cell phone 3GPP ecosystem? How hard can that be? However, that’s a compromise that has serious drawbacks. With 5G Broadcast you would give up on:

• a standard that can grow as needs and uses change,
• technological advancements and future capabilities while maintaining backwards compatibility, and
• maximizing the flexibility to do other things with your valuable spectrum. 

It’s as if you have a plot of land and are forever restricted to only growing corn on it.  Would you give up growing a more profitable plant or mining for minerals below the dirt or constructing a high rise to maximize the value of that land?  We should want to maximize the flexibility and new uses for our little “plot of spectrum.” The best equipment to maximize that is ATSC 3.0.  It’s the equivalent of a sophisticated EV tractor vs. a shovel. Go with the tractor. The upside is far, far greater.

The rise of 5G technology in mobile devices has opened new opportunities for broadcasters, revolutionizing their interaction with audiences. By harnessing the capabilities of 5G broadcast, broadcasters can distribute content seamlessly across a range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, and other connected devices. This empowers broadcasters to cater to evolving consumer preferences, expand their audience reach, and foster deeper engagement.

An important advancement in this field is the recent submission of an application for an experimental 5G Broadcast Special Temporary Authority (STA) to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by WWOO-LD, a Boston-based Low-Power Television (LPTV) station. This development highlights the agility of LPTV stations in embracing evolving technologies, bridging the gap between traditional broadcasters and mobile media.

Progress in 5G Broadcast Technology:
Significant progress has been made in 5G broadcast technology since the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 14. Release 16 further improved eMBMS capabilities, while Release 17 introduced the comprehensive Media Broadcast Service (MBS) architecture. 

Successful tests conducted by countries worldwide have demonstrated the readiness of 5G Broadcast for commercialization.

Advantages of 5G Broadcast Technology:
5G broadcast technology offers numerous advantages that greatly benefit broadcasters in achieving effective audience engagement. Here are the key advantages:

• Global Digital Connectivity: With the widespread adoption of 5G in mobile devices, broadcasters utilizing 5G broadcast can ensure that their content reaches a diverse range of devices. This compatibility allows broadcasters to deliver content seamlessly across multiple platforms and maximize their audience reach and engagement.
• Efficient Spectrum Utilization: 5G broadcast optimizes the usage of spectrum by delivering content to multiple users simultaneously through a single transmission. This efficient utilization of frequency resources is particularly advantageous for popular live events or situations where a large audience simultaneously accesses the same content.
• Extensive Coverage: 5G broadcast utilizing TV spectrum is well-suited for delivering content over large geographic areas, enabling broadcasters to reach broad audiences. This capability is invaluable for emergency alerts, public safety communications, and other scenarios where widespread coverage is critical.

Symbiotic Relationship between LPTV Stations and Traditional Broadcasters:
LPTV stations, by embracing 5G broadcast, bring diversity to the broadcasting landscape and offer an additional platform for content delivery, expanding options for viewers and enhancing their overall experience.

Mutual Benefits between Broadcasters and Mobile Network Operators:
Traditional broadcasters gain access to the extensive reach and ubiquity of 5G devices, allowing them to connect with audiences on the go and expand their viewer base. This expanded reach enables broadcasters to engage with viewers in new ways and explore innovative content distribution methods.

On the other hand, mobile network operators benefit from the offloading of media traffic facilitated by 5G broadcast. Broadcasting popular or bandwidth-intensive content through broadcast transmissions reduces strain on the cellular network, alleviating network congestion and improving overall network performance. This offloading of media traffic optimizes network resources and enhances the quality of service for mobile users, ensuring a smooth and seamless experience.

Coordination is Key:
Implementing a new system always presents complexities, and it is crucial to address potential challenges using a viable system of networking. Factors such as regulatory processes, infrastructure requirements, interoperability, security and privacy, and availability of high-quality content must be carefully considered.

Coordination is key to ensuring success. By aligning efforts and leveraging the strengths of each stakeholder, technological innovation can be maximized, content delivery can be optimized, and the overall viewing experience for audiences can be enhanced.

Openness Enhances Viability:
To gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact of 5G broadcast, it is essential to examine specific examples and case studies from around the world. Highlighting successful trials, implementations, and regulatory initiatives from various regions would provide a global perspective on the progress of 5G broadcast technology. This approach would also showcase its potential for transforming the broadcasting landscape on a broader scale.

People-Centered Transformation:
Successful integration of 5G broadcast technology requires organizations to upgrade their knowledge and skills while focusing on maximizing audience satisfaction. Adopting a viewer-centric approach and tailoring content offerings to audience preferences ensures universal content accessibility and positive viewer experiences.

Conclusion:
As the journey of 5G broadcast continues, the collective efforts of all stakeholders will shape the future of the broadcasting industry. By staying at the forefront of technological advancements and embracing the potential of 5G broadcast, LPTV stations, traditional broadcasters, mobile network operators, and regulatory bodies can pave the way for a transformative broadcasting experience that benefits both broadcasters and viewers alike. 

Through collaboration, innovation, and a shared vision, the broadcasting landscape can evolve into a dynamic and captivating media ecosystem of connectivity, interactivity, and universal content accessibility, ultimately enhancing the viewing experience for audiences worldwide and meeting their demands anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

With worldwide broadcast standards now combining traditional over-the-air terrestrial television with Internet Protocol, the ATSC is working on ensuring ATSC 3.0 and other digital terrestrial television (DTT) standards are part of a global wireless ecosystem that includes cellular standards such as LTE/5G as well as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

The U.S. based standards committee has released a white paper on its campaign to remind decisionmakers of the value, ubiquity and robustness of advanced broadcast standards such as 3.0 and DVB, the dominant broadcast standard in Europe. 

“The paper is a very public statement from the ATSC that basically expresses a strong desire to work closely with other digital terrestrial television standards development organizations in an effort to look at where technology can be converged and work on developing a unified voice on the world stage for broadcasting,” said Madeleine Noland, president of ATSC.

'Codifying a Shift'
Since there has never been a global terrestrial television format, DVB, ATSC and others have, in the past, been looked upon as competitors when promoting adoption worldwide. Such competitiveness is no longer the case, however, when broadcasting has become viewed by some as yesterday's wireless technology in a world now dominated by IP data streamed over cellular networks. But now with IP protocol part of worldwide broadcast standards, a new "data pipe" available via over the air broadcast brings with it a whole new set of opportunities. 

It’s important for broadcasters to continue to remind worldwide standards bodies of the relevancy of broadcasting, which brings the efficiency of the "many to one" broadcast model vs. "one to one" unicast, characteristic of the IP model. This is especially so in an environment where the spectrum currently used by broadcasters is coveted by wireless providers.   

“Broadcasters worldwide are facing challenges with the advent of new media consumption but we're facing new opportunities together with the notion that you can now deliver IP data over your broadcast network,” Noland said. “Broadcasters worldwide can work together to develop some of these opportunities that will benefit everybody. This paper is codifying a shift that's already been taking place between what would appear to have been a very competitive landscape in the past.”

Along with recognizing the value of broadcasters’ traditional ties to their local communities, there are also the technical advantages that broadcasting brings to the table, something that has been proven time and again during weather-related emergencies.   

“Broadcasters share a common infrastructure design, largely anchored by high power, high tower (HPHT) transmission facilities,” the ATSC said in its paper. “This infrastructure is often among the most resilient, designed to withstand natural disasters so that information can be transmitted when it is most needed.”

Ongoing Efforts
The ATSC plans to discuss its proposals with an eye towards the ITU World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 in November. The work towards converging worldwide broadcast standards has been ongoing for more than a decade, according to the ATSC.

“The effort to forge a next-generation broadcast standard that encompasses all the major standards development organizations (SDOs) dates back over 10 years,” starting with the Future of Broadcast Television (FOBTV) Summit in November 2011 in Shanghai, the association said. “The initial goal of FOBTV to foster work on a best-of-the-best next-generation television system has not been realized to date, but since its formation the group has served as a forum for communication and exploration of new technologies and ongoing efforts underway within the various SDOs.”

One of the keys for tying broadcast technology into other wireless formats is through the development of a "broadcast core network"  that is agnostic to the DTT system, a concept ATSC is working on.

The broadcast core network "is being designed for standalone, broadcast-only operation and/or for converged operation with other data delivery networks, e.g., 802.11, 5G, LTE, 3G, SMPTE 2110, CBRS, Satellite (LEO-MEO-GEO), LoRA, IoT, etc.," the ATSC said. 

"BCN will accommodate cases where an uplink is always available, never available, or sometimes available. The goal of the BCN is to enable broadcasters to offer regional data delivery services, such as software updates to game consoles, recall updates to managed automobile fleets, and more. Among these use cases is redundant or enhanced GPS signaling (eGPS)."

This convergence of worldwide broadcast standards with 3GPP (aka “3rd Generation Partnership Project,” an umbrella term for a number of standards organizations which develop protocols for mobile telecommunications) could bring to reality a scenario in which cellular and broadcast protocols could work together in ensuring consumers are always using the most robust and reliable wireless reception available. 

However, broadcasters will have to unite behind a common goal to make DTT an essential part of a global telecommunications ecosystem first, the organization warned. 

“DTT broadcasters are operating in a global ecosystem of data delivery networks,” the ATSC said. “Data session steering, switching, and sharing across heterogeneous networks can improve spectrum usage efficiency by using the most appropriate network(s) for each given data session in a dynamic fashion. Indeed, 3GPP envisions a 5G ecosystem of heterogeneous global data networks. Next-generation DTT systems are the most efficient physical layers for one to-many data delivery in the world—for TV and non-TV uses, and for fixed and mobile uses. 

“This technology edge can be leveraged for convergence with other data delivery networks, e.g., the Internet and LTE/5G, but fragmentation creates a fundamental barrier to including DTT in this heterogeneous ecosystem,” the ATSC continued. “As a means of more than just survival, the more exciting potential for this segment is to integrate the next generation digital transmission technologies into the generalized convergence. Convergence among the major DTT technologies would facilitate convergence with other networks (and may be necessary for long-term success).”

Richard Friedel, chairman of the ATSC, said broadcasters were approached by 3GPP to develop a plan for such a convergence. “This was an initiative on their part,” he said. “So that means they're interested enough that they're going to try to make something happen.”

Friedel added that with concerns over spectrum efficiency and sustainability, the strength of broadcast technology becomes more evident than ever. “The absolute lowest cost of delivery of a bit of information to consumers is through a broadcast methodology,” he said.

HUNT VALLEY, MD.--Fresh off the rollout of a multistandard DTV receiver chipset with support for ATSC 3.0 at the International CES 2019 in Las Vegas, Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media LLC and VP of Advanced Technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group is greatly encouraged about the prospects for ATSC 3.0.

Taking center stage for ONE Media at the annual consumer electronics extravaganza was the rollout of a receiver chipset capable of receiving 12 different digital television standards, including 3.0.

But Aitken’s enthusiasm extends well beyond the favorable reception the receiver chipset received at the show. The exhibit also featured a new broadcast radio head designed to integrate the inherent efficiencies and effectiveness of one-to-many OTA broadcasting into 4G and 5G wireless data networks.

Aitken–a long-time proponent of offloading the one-to-many portion of wireless network operators’ traffic to broadcast—says the broadcast radio head was favorably received by representatives of wireless networks and their suppliers in Las Vegas.

In this, the first of a two-part interview, Aitken talks about the multistandard DTV receiver chipset, the new broadcast radio head, LTE Broadcast and 5G and how 5G standards development envision integration of multiple wireless networks. He also provides an update on his offer to give away 1 million of new receiver chips to any vendor that promises to build them into mobile and portable devices.

(An edited transcript.)

TVTechnology:How would you characterize the reaction coming out of CES 2019 to ONE Media’s rollout of two multistandard DTV receiver chips with support for ATSC 3.0?

Mark Aitken: I would say I was startled by the level of activity and positive feedback.

What I mean by that is we had various meetings set up with Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese, Indian and U.S. companies—makers of dongles, set-top boxes, TV sets and gateways.

The discussions were not just about the chip. The other thing that was in the room as a backdrop for the chip was Saankhya had almost a dozen different applications of software-defined receivers. They ran the gamut from USB dongles and tablets to satellite radios and modulators.

Alongside of that was a product we are in the process of developing as a direct result of our conversations on the convergence of broadcast and broadband. We showed a prototype broadcast radio head.

TVT:What’s that?

MA: A broadcast radio head is a small, outdoor-mount utility device, not at all unlike an LTE radio head, except supporting broadcast.

We were involved in designing that for a customer deployment. The idea is pretty simple–a box that can sit on a tower alongside LTE and 5G that is designed to tie into the data network, the intelligent network of a telecom operator. In the 4G world, it’s the “EPC” [Evolved Packet Core]. In 5G, it’s the new 5G Core architecture.

The point is we are headlong into defining the interconnect of Next-Gen Broadcast to the world of telcom as a supplemental download or auxiliary download or however you want to view it—but a broadcast spectrum-enabled device that allows the conveyance of telcom data across an ATSC 3 waveform.

By the way, I almost hate to say ATSC 3 because with the implementation that is being prototyped and coming into a proof of concept we are supporting parts of the ATSC 3 standard that are extensions that will be enabled and signaled via the bootstrap. So, we are already evolving the standard.

TVT:So, from a wireless operator’s point of view, does this broadcast radio head fulfill what you have talked about for a long time: a technology that enables an operator to offload its one-to-many data traffic to broadcast, thus preserving a significant portion of its wireless network?

MA: Absolutely. It is being designed as a replacement to the very poorly conceived, very poorly implemented multicast mode in the LTE environment.

It’s known to the consumer as LTE Broadcast. It’s eMBMS [Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service].

But eMBMS is a unicast-enabled multicast mode of operation, and it is unicast-enabled because it can’t stand on its own as a broadcast waveform. It lives in the unicast environment and demands the ability to do lost packet replacement knowing there is going to be lost packets replaced versus a designed broadcast standard that is meant to stand on its own.

We are doing all of the plumbing. We are involved in India, not just with the chip development, but we are also a member of the telecom standards organization in India, TSDSI [Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India].

They are working at defining the standard that would allow anybody to a take a non-3GPP [Third Generation Partnership Project] broadcast radio—and I call it a radio because that’s how the telcom guys like to think of it—and tie it into a 3GPP access network. We are defining all the attributes that allow this non-3GPP radio to be integrated into that network.

TVT:What about 5G? It seems like you will be going head to head against what operators plan for 5G broadcast.

MA: Well, these go hand-in-hand. What we are doing is providing an invaluable supplemental feed that is actually aligned with the 5G standard.

TVT:Let me clarify what I was asking. I guess it’s a matter of perspective because I know some broadcasters—and you specifically—have talked about 3.0 being an integral part of a future 5G network. But I don’t know if the wireless industry has shown it is receptive to that and will let broadcasters play in their sandbox.

MA: Look, part of this is a matter of who owns the spectrum. Part of this is a matter of who controls the network.

So, the 3GPP spectrum I am talking about is “TS22.261, Release 16.” http://www.3gpp.org/news-events/3gpp-news/1831-sa1_5g. There are all kinds of pieces to this puzzle, but it [broadcast spectrum] is one of the many.

TS22.261 is the 3GPP technical standard and system aspects that define service requirements for 5G systems. It’s known as Release 16, and it’s not finished yet. But from its inception, Release 16 has continued to address the requirements to work in conjunction with 3GPP and non-3GPP systems.

There is an absolute recognition that 3GPP doesn’t live in the world by itself. There are other standards, and the true nature of 5G has nothing to do with specific spectrum.

You say 5G, and there are some people who think it is 20 GHz, or it is millimeter wave or it’s 60 GHz. People jump to the spectrum side of it, and there is some spectrum that is being opened up for advanced radios.

But at its heart, 5G is about convergence. 5G is about multi-radios. 5G is about how do we assemble all of the available radio assets into a unified environment? How does a telco fully utilize WiFi, how does it fully utilize all the efforts that are going on in CBRS [Citizens Broadband Radio Service].

How do all of these things get pulled together in one place? That is what this 5G spec is all about. It’s about convergence. It’s about heterogeneous networks—that’s the fancy term. Hybrid networks is an easier one to think about. And we have talked for so long about this convergence of broadcast and broadband—I don’t know how many different ways I have tried to describe it, but it goes much deeper than simply it’s [3.0 is] IP-enabled.

But I can tell you that if it weren’t IP-enabled, there would be no discussion on the table.

Great, it’s IP-enabled. That means the same stuff that flows across the carrier’s [spectrum] can flow across our spectrum. Check that box off. Well, how do you control that? How do you put that as an active, living mechanism under the control of a network operator? We are doing that work.

And I say all of that because if you walked into the room [at CES] and you could have the big screen TVs and the very same 3.0 chip doing ATSC 3 on one screen and ATSC 1 on another screen. If you wanted, it could have been DVB-T, DVB-T2 or ISDB-T. It could have been some of the advanced DVB satellite [standards]. It could be any of those.

But the point is in the background of that was this whole vibrant discussion of what if broadcasters were doing something more than television. There’s a shock.

I always have to draw people’s attention to the fact that ATSC was building a television standard. We were engaged in ATSC because we wanted a broadcast standard.

What you have in ATSC 3 is a broadcast standard, a broadcast television standard, but by nature of elements that were foundational—and by the way ours, I mean down to the IPR [intellectual property rights]—we ensured that we were not precluded from doing the other things we knew were possible with a newly baked, green field broadcast standard. Now we are beginning to explore those areas.

TVT:What sort of things?

MA: A very simple example, if you want high-speed mobility, an 8K FFT [fast Fourier transform] is not good enough. 8K gets you up to 100-plus mph. But what if you want a broadcast standard that can operate at Autobahn speeds or will support bullet trains? What if you have a broadcast standard that is more than just automobiles?

Well, you need a 2K or 4K FFT—neither of which are in the ATSC 3 standard, but are fully possible if you want to create a modulator that will do a 4K FFT for example—and a receiver that will process a 4K FFT.

Guess what. We have a software-defined radio. So, we can literally create a waveform on the front end and demodulate that waveform on the backend because both ends of that are software-defined.

We are doing simple stuff first, but it will advance to different coding techniques, different modulation schemes. We are crawling. We are just starting down the road.

So, in the background in this room [at CES], there was this radio head on a big tripod and an antenna attached to it that was demonstrating to people that there are products being envisioned and prototyped and that are going to be deployed that fit directly into the mobile network operator environment.

I choose those words carefully because it wasn’t until we were having discussions with one of the major providers to the telco industry, as we are describing this, that they said you are describing an architectural element.

We said, you are absolutely right. This is building a mobile network operation a bit differently. It’s just the primary architectural element is broadcast, not unicast. It’s not to the exclusion of unicast.

TVT:A couple of years ago at the ATSC annual meeting, you made an offer to provide 1 million ATSC 3.0 mobile receiver chips for free to mobile or portable device makers. Did your CES chipset rollout get you any takers?

MA: We had a couple of conversations with dongle manufacturers who wanted to know how they would take advantage of our offer. So, we’ve now got two vendors with whom we’ve had that first level of discussion. We are getting down to how we make that happen.

I can’t give you all the details of that, but the criteria for that was simply that it’s a party that commits to putting a million of these chips into mobile and portable devices, and that is a fairly broad range of products. And they may not all be ATSC 3.

In Part II,  Mark will discuss his concept of a "broadcast market exchange," content security within ATSC 3.0 and Sinclair's plans for Next Gen TV deployment in 2019. 

For a comprehensive list of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, visit our ATSC3 silo.

MUNICH, GERMANY—High-power, high-tower broadcasting to mobile phones and tablets via wireless networks has gotten one step closer with the deployment of an LTE Broadcast single frequency network in Germany.

Transmitter and RF specialist Rohde & Schwarz and antenna manufacturer Kathrein have teamed up on the deployment to deliver media and other data to mobile and portable receivers in Munich and on major traffic arteries between Munich and Salzburg. The deployment is part of the 5G TODAY research project.

LTE Broadcast, also known as Further-evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (FeMBMS), defines options for transmitting to LTE-enabled mobile equipment, including smartphones and media tablets. The standard, specified in 3GPP Release 14 in June 2017, makes it possible for the first time for LTE to enable high-power, high-tower applications in downlink-only mode while using full signal bandwidth for multicast/broadcast applications, said Rohde & Schwarz.

The release also defines a guard interval and modes to allow operation without SIM cards, a requirement for broadcast operation.

Rohde & Schwarz and Kathrein achieved a milestone Dec. 4 when an R&S THU9evo high-power transmitter (5 kW with a 100 kW ERP) went into operation at Bayerischer Rundfunk’s (BR’s) Wendelstein transmitter site. On the same day, Kathrein finished an antenna deployment for testing at BR’s transmitter site in Ismaning near Munich.

[Read: Verizon Launches 700 MHz Airborne LTE Ops]

The Rohde & Schwarz FeMBMS solution supports broadcast applications for video and IP data in high-power, high-tower topologies with bandwidths of 5 MHz and 10 MHz. The transmitter receives the reference and configuration data via 3GPP-conform protocols from an LTE EPC (Evolved Packet Core), said Rohde & Schwarz.

For the research project, the Rohde & Schwarz broadcast service control center (BSCC) provides all needed EPC functions. BR delivers broadcast services to the BSCC via an R&S AVHE100 headend, the company said.

Kathrein’s specially designed antenna in Ismaning supports transmission of diversity signals with 12 innovative UHF antenna fields installed at a height of 656 feet. It also included a 1,214-foot-long HF transmission cable as thick as a human arm. Plans call for a second R&S high-power transmitter (7 kW) to be connected to the antenna by the end of January 2019, making the SFN ready for testing and signal measurement.

5G TODAY is a Bavarian research project that is part of a European 5G field trial being set up in Germany. The Bavarian Research Foundation is funding the project. Kathrein and Rohde & Schwarz, under the leadership of the Institute for Broadcast Technology, are investigating large-scale TV broadcast in FeMBMS mode via 5G broadcast networks. Telefonica Germany and Bavarian state broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk are supporting the project.

(Editor’s note: In the United States, a high TV tower could be 2,000 feet. High-power can mean 1000 kW ERP.) 

LA JOLLA, CA.—The 3GPP announced last week that it has approved the 5G SA (standalone) standard for next generation wireless. This follows the group’s approval last year of 5GNR, which allows standard to be built on existing LTE networks. The 5G SA standard allows for deployment of the cellular service on new networks. 3GPP is an international standards body that governs cellular standardization.

"The 5G System specification has now reached its official stage of completion," said Erik Guttman, Chairman of 3GPP TSG SA (Technical Specifications Group Standalone). 

 More than 600 delegates from the world's major telecom operators, network, terminals and chipset vendors, internet companies and other vertical industry companies attended the meeting, which 3GPP characterized as “historic.”

The finalization of the standard means that, in the words of 3GPP, the telecommunications industry can now take the “final sprint” towards 5G commercialization.

[Read: The Dazzling Future Of 5G Wireless]

“The completion of SA specifications which complements the NSA specifications, not only gives 5G NR the ability of independent deployment, but also brings a brand new end-to-end network architecture, making 5G a facilitator and an accelerator during the intelligent information and communications technology improvement process of enterprise customers and vertical industries,” the organization in announcing the milestone. “New business models will be enabled and a new era where everything is interconnected will be opened up for both mobile operators and industrial partners.”

“The freeze of Standalone 5G NR radio specifications represents a major milestone in the quest of the wireless industry towards realizing the holistic 5G vision,” said Balázs Bertényi, chairman of 3GPP TSG RAN (Technical Specifications Group). “5G NR Standalone systems not only dramatically increase the mobile broadband speeds and capacity, but also open the door for new industries beyond telecommunications that are looking to revolutionize their ecosystem through 5G.”

Major U.S. telecom providers including Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile have already announced plans to deploy 5G—which will greatly expand cellular bandwidth, allowing for more robust video offerings—as early as this year.

In its comments marking the occasion, Verizon noted that it had recently marked two “industry firsts” in 5G development, including the successful completion of outdoor data sessions based on the 3GPP NR standard and the successful completion of multi-carrier aggregation, boosting the signals into the gigabit range.

Hank Kafka, vice president, Access Architecture and Standards for AT&T said that “commercial 5G services are closer than ever with the completion of 3GPP Release 15. This milestone will allow for more advanced testing using standards-compliant equipment and paves the way for our commercial 5G launch in a dozen cities later this year. We are proud to have been part of the process as the industry participants in 3GPP came together to achieve the acceleration, and now completion, of the first phase of 5G specifications.”