FREMONT, Calif.—The Streaming Video Technology Alliance (SVTA) has announced the recipients of its 2024 Membership Grant Program as well as extended support for existing grant members. Now in its seventh year, the Membership Grant Program sponsors select companies that meet the financial requirements, with a one-year Principal membership. 

This grant program not only enables smaller companies to participate in and benefit from the SVTA’s mission of deeper industry collaboration across the video streaming ecosystem, but also benefits existing members and the industry at large by bringing in new ideas from cutting-edge startups and accelerating advancements in video streaming, the group said. 

“We are thrilled to welcome the newest cohort of Grant recipients to the SVTA and look forward to the valuable insights and contributions they will bring. We remain committed to diversity, striving to foster a membership base that is inclusive of a wide array of individual and organizational backgrounds,” said Jason Thibeault, executive director at the Streaming Video Technology Alliance. “In 2024, we also look forward to celebrating a decade since the founding of the Alliance. This milestone is a testament to the collective efforts of our members and what we have accomplished together.”

The SVTA board of directors chose the following companies as the new 2024 grant recipients:

• Alvalinks supports all entities conducting live streaming and ensures seamless and high-quality video streams across every interface and platform, in every imaginable environment. Alvalinks Intelligent Delivery guarantees reliable live video streams from source to destination, optimally routing them across edge, internet, and cloud. “Video delivery is a core tenet of viewers’ quality of experience. Alvalinks observability platform helps media organizations to solve the networking challenges and ensure video contribution is flawless. We are excited to join the SVTA, and take an active part in its working groups to help build guidelines and recommendations for streaming and video contribution.” – Dr. Gabriel Kerner, CEO, Alvalinks
• ARK Multicasting is a leading-edge Next Gen TV company, leveraging the power of TV broadcasting by adding an IP multicast extension to the unicast Internet. ARK is on the forefront of Broadcast Internet Service development with solutions to relieve congestion for ISPs and provide datacasting services for many verticals including distance learning, the connected car market, smart agriculture, telehealth, and over-the-top video streaming providers. “ARK Multicasting is so very excited to be rewarded a 2024 SVTA Grant Award. As media and entertainment consumption continues to increase across unicast infrastructure, the need for innovative delivery like ARK Multicasting becomes even more necessary. Through the alliance, important industry driven standards and solutions like open caching will continue to unite this space towards a better tomorrow.” – Joshua Weiss, co-founder & CEO, ARK Multicasting
• id3as are the Pioneers of 'Self-Healing' video pipelines and the enterprise specialist 'tailors' for those wanting to deliver high value premium live streaming services such as LL-HLS, WebRTC, Packaging, and Encoding for every element of the workflow and across any scale of private infrastructure, carrier network, or cloud. "We are honored and thrilled to be the recipient of a 2024 SVTA grant membership. id3as has long believed that vendors, media companies, and consumers all benefit when we work together to solve the hard problems facing the streaming industry. We look forward to diving in and helping the SVTA continue to make a difference, particularly in the live streaming realm." – Adrian Roe, CEO, id3as
• BackBone Networks (Wiber) is the split off from Wiber (residential and commercial Internet) to specialize in higher-tier services, including internet provision to other ISPs. Wiber is the rebranding of TECNET. 
• Existing Grant Recipient Members allt, Blockcast, IdeaNova, picoNETS, and swXtch.io will continue into 2024 as Grant members. A special committee chartered by the board selected these recipients to receive another membership grant based on their contributions.

For more information on the SVTA, the Technical Groups, or to inquire about becoming a member, visit https://www.svta.org.

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. & DALLAS, Texas—GAIAN Solutions and ARK Multicasting have created a joint venture that plans to set up the nation's largest Broadcast Internet Network and to swiftly launch the service in over 30% of the country using NextGen TV spectrum. 

The two companies said that they have committed to an aggressive roll-out and that the joint venture aims to initially extend its network to all 300 television stations currently served by ARK.

"We are shopping for partners in other markets, as the potential for growth and reach is tremendous, and the opportunity for all television broadcasters who partner is unmatched by existing models" said Joshua Weiss, CEO of ARK.

Leveraging valuable NextGenTV spectrum, the joint venture promises to launch a plethora of applications, including citizen safety, IoT management, Smart City Services, Digital Signage and Interactive applications. 

The network is initially launching dozens of these applications in 10 markets and plans to rapidly expand to cater to the needs of cities and communities across the country, the companies said. 

"In the explosive and rapidly changing world of AI-based digital solutions, the Mobius platform brings light-speed capabilities to envision, engineer and launch applications leveraging the NextGenTV network," said Chandra Kotaru of GAIAN, which has developed Mobius, a Low Code AI-enabled Digital Transformation as a Service (DTaaS) platform to quickly create digital experiences. "You think of an app, we deliver the app. On-Demand IT is the future, and we are proud to bring such bleeding-edge technology to the NextGenTV industry."

ARK Multicasting has been developing services using NextGen TV/ATSC 3.0  relieve congestion for Internet Service Providers and provide datacasting services for many verticals, including distance learning, the connected car market, smart agriculture, telehealth, and over the top video streaming providers. ARK’s footprint of around 300 broadcast outlets covers one third of the U.S., reaching around 100 million people, the company said. 

For further information, please visit www.gaiansolutions.com and www.arkmulticasting.com. 

Early last month, ARK Multicasting announced the successful completion of its ATSC 3.0-based content delivery network trial.

Under the auspices of the Streaming Video Technology Alliance, the LPTV broadcast group with a goal of putting 300 ATSC 3.0 stations on air to support a nationwide data delivery network, worked with companies like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lumen Technologies, Broadpeak and SiliconDust to demonstrate the viability of the Open Cache Standard in its 3.0-based datacasting model.

The company has already conducted conversations with a broad range of potential customers looking to leverage its 3.0-based datacasting service to do everything from deliver firmware updates to stream OTT video content over the air.

In this interview, company co-founder and CEO Joshua Weiss discusses the progress ARK Multicasting is making in realizing its vision for ATSC 3.0-based datacasting, who’s interested in the service and when he expects the company to begin generating revenue.

(An edited transcript.)

TVTech: What is ARK Multicasting’s vision for ATSC 3.0?

Josh Weiss: ARK Multicasting is an operating company building an ATSC 3.0 business across a portfolio of low-power television stations. Our intent for what we're building is to utilize the majority of the capacity of these low-power stations to do datacasting across the entire city where one of our stations is located.

The way we view both the spectrum and the opportunity is that we're building a pipe that can be used as part of the greater network architecture for getting data from one to many in the most efficient, effective way that enhances communications architecture, improves networks, eliminates network congestion, benefits content owners, benefits internet service providers, benefits content delivery networks and ultimately enhances the end user’s experience.

TVT: When will we see 3.0 powering an ARK Multicasting offering?

JW: We have 10 stations we’ve been deploying with the full 3.0 build, complete with the broadcast core and all of the aspects and elements capable of doing 100% what our big picture vision is. In those builds, we are already doing tests and demonstrations to work towards the commercialization. Ultimately, that’s the big question among broadcasters. When will that happen? How will it happen? 

Before we take this to customers, we need to demonstrate in a real-world environment that it’s not some sort of lab experiment. It is something you can do today. When we start generating revenue is based on our sales cycle and the work we are doing.

TVT: When do you expect the revenue to begin from 3.0-based datacasting?

JW: It's difficult to really predict that accurately. Honestly, if we're going to be real, we have to recognize it's a new market. There's a lot of opportunity, but to try to speculate when the date happens, it’s anybody's guess. Our prediction when we build out our financial models, we're anticipating 18 to 24 months is when we're really bringing in revenues.

Our commercialization conversations, which we're having on a regular basis, are already to the point of talking numbers and contracts. So, I believe that it is very possible that we'll beat that date. But I want to be realistic—so we project conservatively 18 months.

TVT: I am a little surprised you are talking to possible customers before you have your entire 3.0-network built out.

JW: Contrary to the popular belief that's out there that says you have to have ubiquity to have success in this space, the surprising thing we're seeing is that our customers aren't so much interested in requiring that ubiquitous coverage, because we're not being considered as a replacement. We're an accretive augmentation to existing networks.

So, anywhere where somebody is able to do datacasting across an ARK Multicasting station is a benefit to that particular market and their particular customers they're going to reach, using our broadcast signal.

As a result, if we're serving a Ford F 150, we don't have to serve every Ford f 150 in the market. But every Ford F 150 that we do serve is a benefit to Ford and the end user.

TVT: If lack of ubiquitous coverage is not a deal breaker, what are the factors that are important to potential customers?

JW: They're looking at markets when they're doing their business analysis. Their business analysis is trying to answer a few questions: What does it look like in a market where there's congestion from the point of view of land, terrain, buildings, mountains? What does it look like where there's a density of population in correlation to what's the connectivity in that market? And what's the data consumption in that market?

So, you look at a rural city that might only cover 200,000 people. That's equally as interesting to some of these customers as a market that covers 2 [million] or 3 million people. Because in that 200,000-person market, they might not have good connectivity. There might be a greater span geographically, but the data consumption is still something that they're trying to answer. So, it's not just about ubiquity. It's actually very little about ubiquity, and more about what the accretive augmentation is in each individual market.

TVT: I just want to make sure we are on the same page when using the word “datacasting” as relates to 3.0. When you talk about datacasting, are you referring to video, audio and data streams, not simply data used for something like updating vehicle firmware?

JW: When we think of ATSC 3.0 and the broadcast nature of it, we're simply viewing it as a way to get data out as Internet Protocol, IP, data packets. Those data packets, may be audio files, may be video files [or] may be firmware updates. They may be cached files, or they may be live real time files. It's all data.

The reality is data consumption is skyrocketing because resolutions are getting higher, there’s a growing number of devices, there are smart homes and smart cities. 

TVT: We recently reported on the Streaming Video Technology Alliance proof-of-concept testing of the over-the-air content delivery network (CDN) that ARK Multicasting helped to lead. What are the major takeaways?

JW: One of the big proposals of the Streaming Video Technology Alliance that we're in lockstep with is an open caching standard.

Let me explain how this works. When somebody requests that Xbox Game update, or that Yellowstone video file or that firmware update, the ISP [internet service provider] gets the request. The ISP then has to determine what's the closest CDN to pull the file from, and that CDN gets the benefit of the handshake, and the content owner pays for that experience.

What we found in our conversations with ISPs was they want what we're offering, but they don't necessarily have a CDN built into their network, and they don't want to overstep ethical boundaries of peering into their network to identify what that high-demand content is.

The ISPs want us to bring the CDN with us, which is an important component because the CDN is who can know what the popular content is. 

We began working with the Streaming Video Technology Alliance, and Lumen Technologies, which is a CDN, of course, to build out along with Broadpeak what that would look like from an infrastructure and architecture standpoint within our network.

The CDN views this as an opportunity to either A be the CDN of choice when that ISP goes to request a file because it's the one that's living closest to the end user, i.e., in the home, or B, the CDN views it as an opportunity to upsell their content owner to give them the choice to live in the home, which is a value-add for the content owner.

We know that for it to work for us, we have to provide the infrastructure from the broadcast station all the way to the end user. We partnered with Broadpeak to build that infrastructure into our network, which in our opinion has to be an open caching standard. [Editor’s note: The Streaming Video Technology Alliance has created the Open Caching specification.]

The Streaming Video Technology Alliance has championed this open caching, which basically says “We’ve got the downstream CDN from the station to the end user, but we’re open to any CDN on the upstream side.”

That means we can work with any content delivery network or the actual content owners if we desire. If it’s all open caching, it’s not proprietary to make it where it only works with one of them.

We worked with SiliconDust, a leader in the 3.0 set-top box space, and they developed the ARK box, essentially a home CDN box that has an Ethernet cable to go at the network level, a 2TB hard drive that serves as the cache, a power cable and an antenna cable. From that one point, the CDN lives in that box thanks to Broadpeak and speaks to the upstream CDN thanks to the Streaming Video Technology Alliance Open Caching Standard. Then a CDN like Lumen, as well as others, is able to be the upstream CDN. The CDN in the ARK box handles the cache or passes through the linear content in a CDN fashion.

Because of our orchestration layer that’s built in—the part of the broadcast core network built by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, any customer along different data verticals can log into our portal on the ARK website, choose any individual station, any region, batch of stations, or the entire nation and send a file, or “Thursday Night Football” or whatever via the stations they choose with just a few clicks of a button. 

TVT: From what you’ve said, the ARK solution augments –not necessarily replaces—data delivery networks. Can you give me a scenario you envision to illustrate that?

JW: Think of it like this, when Amazon is putting out “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” or “Thursday Night Football,” either of those live or cached, they're going to be putting it out in multiple different resolutions for different device applications.

They might not care to put all of those through the one-to-many multicast that ARK provides. Maybe they only want to do the most consumed resolution of HD or 4K, whatever that may be. They can choose which resolution they want and have that go through our pipe. The rest goes through the traditional unicast network architecture.

If it's “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and it's living in the cache in the hard drive in the CDN in the ARK box, no problem, and if it's a live thing like “Thursday Night Football,” same thing. No problem.

TVT: How do you plan to market the ARK box to subscribers?

JW: We're not looking to have a direct relationship with the end user. We're a B-2-B play. Our customers are the content owners, the cloud CDN providers, the ISPs or some combination of all three.

TVT: Is the incentive then what’s been called the broadcast offload of network traffic for one-to-many applications?

JW: When we talk to ISPs, we're told when an X Box game update comes out, their network is 65% congested by that one file. There's motivation for the ISP to deliver a new box [the ARK box] if that new box relieves congestion at that magnitude.

Beyond that, we believe that there's a business opportunity for an ISP, to participate in some of the benefit that comes from the content owners, who typically only pay the CDN. The ISP is the one that's left out while their network is being consumed by the same files redundantly traveling across it. 

TVT: How do you see your future customers paying for your service?

JW: There are three ways.  One, they are charged by a best-case broadcast. They can choose to put out the file they wish to distribute really fast, really robust or really slow trickled out. In any case, they’re paying for bandwidth. How much of our 6MHz is being used? And how long is that taking?

That's what they're going to pay for. That's best-case broadcast. We don't check on the other end to verify that anyone received it. We don’t check to see if anyone consumed it. They’re responsible for the receive side.

The second approach, which would be a little bit more expensive, is anything verified on the receive side. So, once we've broadcast it, if they’re using our receive side, they can choose to pay based on what's been validated to have been received by the receive device.

The third approach is for them to pay only what is actually consumed out of that box. So, it's a low-risk. If they're unsure, fine, only pay for what we actually transmitted that has been verified to have been received and has been verified to have been consumed in that box in a metered fashion.

And that way, you know that if you're paying for it, it's because it's benefiting your overall business case.

TVT: Where does ARK Multicasting go from here?

JW: We’re going to continue plowing forward. It's an uphill battle because we're blazing into new territories. It's a field that hasn't been tapped yet. 

As a result, we're working hard as pioneers, in a sense, which is very difficult. But we believe, with everything in us that there's something very real here. The opportunity, once it's become crystallized, once it comes more in focus regarding what the low-hanging fruit is for commercial partners, we believe that there's a bright future.

As a result, we're going to continue being all in on everything that we've been doing. That includes continuing to develop what we’ve been developing, continuing to build stations and continuing to look under every stone to gain market input and get smart about what potential customers need.

TVT: Is ARK Multicasting and it’s 300 future stations a closed model, or are you open to working with affiliate broadcasters to expand your network footprint further?

JW: We've had multiple conversations with multiple different groups that represent hundreds of stations that want ARK to be resellers of their bits. Those requests have come from multiple full-power broadcasters and low-power broadcasters.

They are signs to us that we're on to something that could very well be a situation in which we sell the bits for all of them, and everybody benefits. However, I'm content to work with others. If somebody else is further along and has a better solution. I'm not naïve enough to say, “It’s my way or the highway.” In my opinion, we're all going to benefit, the faster and better we can get this commercialization lift off the ground.

CEDAR HILL, Texas—ARK Multicasting has completed a successful proof of concept of a commercial content delivery network demonstrating end-to-end delivery from source to the far edge in the consumer home—a significant development in the ATSC 3.0-based datacasting business model, the low-power television broadcaster said today.

The broadcaster joined the Streaming Video Technology Alliance (SVTA) earlier this year and has been involved with its Open Caching committee to refine and work towards the deployment of an Over-the-Air CDN (OTA-CDN). Other active members in this process include Lumen Technologies as the Upstream CDN (uCDN), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) providing orchestration services, Broadpeak providing the Downstream CDN (dCDN) infrastructure and SiliconDust, which created a Home CDN customer premise device (CPE) for ARK, the company said.

The OTA-CDN architecture is developed so any CDN can easily delegate delivery requests to ARK’s ATSC-3.0 system based on business rules and capacity telemetry. Popular content can be pre-positioned to the ATSC-3.0 system, delivered over the air to the in-home caching node in the SiliconDust CPE device and made available to in-home devices over the user's home network. All this can occur using SVTA standard open caching request routing principles in a manner that is transparent to the end-user device, it said.

“This is a significant accomplishment for broadcasters everywhere and for network architecture across the United States,” said ARK co-founder and CEO Joshua Weiss. “Gone are the days of the same popular data files clogging the pipes of the last mile ISPs. This will be an important architectural enhancement to CDNs, ISPs and content owners everywhere who have many users streaming video content live or on-demand and those looking to create a better user experience for gaming, firmware updates, cloud services, and so much more.”

The proof of concept had three phases. The first related to downloads of files; the second involved live video streaming; and the third dealt with on-demand streaming. All were successful, ARK Multicasting said.

The file-based download phase involved the ATSC 3.0 system pulling files from the uCDN and positioning them on the home-caching CPE device. End users could then request a file using their existing Internet Service Provider (ISP), and the request was automatically rerouted to pull the data from the home CDN, it said.

Both live video streaming and video-on-demand streaming were accomplished using the Broadpeak Transcaster to demonstrate the ATSC 3.0 system providing a live HLS and MPEG-DASH stream from the uCDN with multicast adaptive bitrate (mABR), it said.

“This collaboration validates the open caching model as being relevant and suitable for a variety of use cases, including those involving a broadcast network system like the ARK’s ATSC 3.0” said Broadpeak director of exploration Guillaume Bichot. 

The head of the Streaming Video Technology Alliance sees the proof of concept as emblematic of what the group seeks to accomplish. 

The effort was a successful "collaboration between member companies which put our specifications into practice and, even more importantly in this case, establish something new and unique as part of the streaming video technology stack: an OTA CDN,” said SVTA executive director Jason Thibeault.

“What ARK Multicasting has done in conjunction with our home caching project and Lumen is bridge the gap between a powerful broadcast technology, ATSC 3.0, and streaming platform operations. There's no longer a question of how ATSC 3.0 fits into the streaming stack. This work has given it a meaningful place as part of how streams can be delivered, especially to bandwidth-challenged rural areas, and even extended its value through connection to a Home Caching Node in a CPE device," he said.

More information is available on the ARK Multicasting website.

AUSTIN, Texas—ARK Multicasting has joined the Streaming Video Technology Alliance (formerly the Streaming Video Alliance).

By joining the alliance, an industry forum of companies involved in the online video ecosystem, ARK will dedicate itself to the group’s efforts aimed at developing and using the ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV standard, it said.

"ARK Multicasting is very honored to be joining the industry leaders at the Streaming Video Technology Alliance as we work together to forge the path for improved networks and wireless infrastructure here in the United States,” said Joshua Weiss, co-founder and CEO of ARK.

“As the only television broadcaster primarily focused on datacasting, and the first broadcaster to join the SVA, we hope to pave the way for the broadcast industry and those deploying the new television standard of ATSC 3.0 to include the open caching standard," he continued. "This work is key to our far edge datacenter model and the CDN offload services ARK provides."

ARK is focused on deployment of an open, standards-based, end-to-end wireless IP multicast network. Its goal is to offer a cost-effective datacasting pipe for internet service providers (ISPs), public and private cloud providers, connected and autonomous vehicle makers, OTT stream providers, smart agriculture and distance learning, the company said.

"We are excited to have ARK Multicast join the Alliance," said Jason Thibeault, alliance executive director. "ARK brings a very big ATSC 3.0 datacasting footprint to the U.S. streaming market. As Open Caching continues to explore ways to expand the Open Caching Network closer to the end user, the expanding footprint of ATSC 3.0 enabled devices in the home, such as Smart TVs and router dongles, represent a viable way to deliver content. As an industry leader in ATSC 3.0 datacasting, ARK will be a valuable contributor to the Open Caching work and folding ATSC support into the specifications."

More information is available on the ARK Multicasting website. 

ARK Multicasting has announced a collaboration with SpectraRep to deploy SpectraRep’s Educast service on the ARK Broadcast Internet Network of NextGen TV stations. The partnership is expected to spur further development of the use of ATSC 3.0 datacasting to provide distance learning services for K-12 and college students in rural communities who lack sufficient broadband access, the companies said. 

“We can help solve and even eliminate a major pain point for millions of K-12, college students, and teachers in rural America,” according to Josh Weiss, Co-Founder & CEO, Ark Multicasting. “This new hybrid broadcast-broadband technology is a complete gamechanger allowing a one-to-many reach which serves as an accretive augmentation to traditional Internet providers struggling with network congestion and last-mile connectivity.”

Carrying the EduCast educational datacasting solution to deliver classroom content on its ATSC 3.0 spectrum will allow ARK to reach millions of students on its network of LPTV stations across 39 states, according to the companies.

“The Covid-19 pandemic sent students and teachers home negatively impacting remote learners without access to adequate broadband,” said Mark O’Brien, President and CTO of SpectraRep. “We realized that we could use our technology with the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast Internet to solve problems in education such as homework gaps and equity much the same way we've supported public safety and law enforcement customers.”

With ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV on the ARK network along with SpectraRep’s EduCast, teachers can securely provide their assignments to students so they can study on their own time. It works seamlessly with whatever learning management system the teachers already use whether it is Google Classroom, Canvas, Blackboard, and others.  

RAYMOND, Maine—ARK Multicasting has selected Dielectric as its main antenna provider, relying on the company to build and store Powerlite Series antennas for nearly 50 of its mostly UHF stations affected by the FCC low-power repack, Dielectric announced this week.

Dielectric is also providing ARK with antennas for two repacked VHF station and 150 single TUA panels for non-repacked UHF stations, the company said.

“Because Dielectric has applied its technology and experience from the full power repack to LPTV, we’ve been able to design and build ARK’s antennas way ahead of their needs,” said Cory Edwards, director of OEM, distributor and Southeast Asia sales at Dielectric. 

“And knowing those antennas are already in process helps ARK plan better for their upcoming installations. We also worked closely with ARK to make the FCC reimbursement process more efficient for their business and operational needs, which was critical to meeting their repack deadlines.”

ARK’s 300 LPTV stations reach about one-third of U.S. households. The FCC repack displaced almost 60 of ARK’s stations. Those stations will be assigned new broadcast frequencies by September 2022. Within three years, ARK plans to upgrade the affected stations to ATSC 3.0 operation and offer datacasting services as well as its current religious programming, Dielectric said.

ATSC 3.0-ready Powerlite slot and panel antennas are designed specifically for U.S. LPTV broadcasters. 

For the ARK antennas, Dielectric recalibrated its automated pole fabrication machine, originally built for full-power broadcasters impacted by the repack, to accommodate low-power, pre-production workflows, making it possible to build antennas more efficiently and for broadcasters to bring their displaced stations online more quickly, the company said.

Dielectric will ship antennas to ARK stations around the country in coming months. The company worked with ARK engineers to develop custom antenna patterns for each station based on coverage and market conditions, it said.

“Dielectric has been an important partner for ARK Multicasting as we navigate the broadcast repack,” said ARK Multicasting CEO Josh Weiss. “The ability for Dielectric to anticipate and meet our antenna needs has allowed ARK Multicasting to more efficiently navigate the myriad of supply chain challenges confronting low power broadcasters impacted by the repack.”

More information is available on the Dielectric website.

CEDAR HILL, Texas—If all goes as planned, ARK Multicasting will light up the first two LPTV stations of its planned coast-to-coast Broadcast Internet network based on the ATSC 3.0 standard this month.

The Dallas and Panama City, Fla., stations will be joined by eight others in College Station, Texas, Nashville and Chattanooga, Tenn., Pensacola, Destin, Jacksonville, Melbourne and a second station in Panama City, Fla., before the end of Q1 2022. 

ARK Multicasting holds the licenses or construction permits for 283 LPTV stations around the country, positioning the company to deploy Broadcast Internet service to millions of households. The company plans roll out the service at all of the stations over the next 18 months if supply chain problems do not become an issue, it said.

“Broadcast Internet – because of its one-to-many architecture - is ideally suited to move large amounts of data to tens of thousands of consumers at the same time. Our network has the potential to increase the efficiency of 5G wireless networks, enable autonomous vehicles and provide farmers with precision agriculture technologies,” said ARK CEO Josh Weiss.

Several cloud computing and broadcast equipment companies are supplying technology for the deployment, including:

• Hewlett Packard Enterprises, which is providing infrastructure, software and services for the edge-to-cloud platform for the service.
• Comark Digital Services and transmission teams.
• General Data Tech, which will do staging, burn-in and deployment.
• Triveni Digital, which is providing its SkyScraper XM ATSC 3.0 Datacasting System, 3.0 Broadcast Gateway scheduler, GuideBuilder XM 3.0 transport encoder and StreamScope XM Analyzer—all running in a virtualized environment. 
• Ateme, which has worked for the past several years with ARK Multicasting, providing compression solutions.
• SpectraRep, which will provide the distance learning solutions to be deployed on the first 10 stations.
• Digital Alert Systems, which will provide emergency alerting.

The deployment marks the beginning of a new chapter for television broadcasting, opening up opportunities not possible before development of the ATSC 3.0 standard. Many of the vendors partnering with ARK Multicasting described the undertaking as being visionary and pioneering. 

“In the decades of experience Triveni Digital has in both traditional broadcast and datacasting, there are few things that compare to the excitement I feel about what ARK is deploying. They are true pioneers in this space and Triveni Digital is pleased to be right alongside them,” said Ralph Bachofen, vice president of sales and marketing at Triveni Digital.

SOUTHWICK, Mass.—ARK Multicasting has ordered 56 E-Compact transmitters and associated field service from Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark, the company has announced.

The order includes EC700MP and EC700HP transmitters, ranging from 250W to 3.3kW power output levels. They will be used to help the LPTV broadcaster fulfill its spectrum repack obligations.

Since 2013, Comark has provided low power transmitters to the LPTV market. In that time, it has shipped nearly 500 LPTV transmitters and encoders across the country, Comark said.

The E-Compact is an air-cooled UHF DTV transmitter covering power levers from 50W to 13.2kW. Leveraging asymmetric broadband Doherty amplifier technology for a maximum power efficiency of up to 44%, E-Compact transmitters include a built-in web GUI and SNMP for remote control and monitoring, the company said.

The transmitters use hot-swappable amplifiers and power supplies, eliminating the need for interconnect cables. The product line features the Exact-V2 IP Optimized DTV exciter with DualCast technology for upgrade from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0, it said. 

“We worked very closely with ARK Multicasting Inc. over the last several months on their requirements for this repack program.” said Joe Turbolski, vice president of Sales and Marketing at Comark. “We have the manufacturing capacity, in-country customer service and field service expertise to help ARK Multicasting deploy these LPTV transmitters for the repack program.”

More information is available on the company’s website.

WASHINGTON—ARK Multicasting, one of the largest owners of low-power TV stations in the U.S. is asking the FCC to allow the use of federal funds to subsidize the purchase of ATSC 3.0 devices to allow students to use an LPTV’s IP multicasting feed for distance learning. 

Executives including ARK CEO Josh Weiss met with Ryan Palmer, chief of the Telecommunications Access Policy Division, earlier this week to discuss the proposal. ARK discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has created a “deep and alarming crisis” in education, “exacerbating the digital divide” and leading to an urgent need for distance learning innovation and how ATSC 3.0 can close the homework gap in rural communities without access to high speed internet.

ARK has been at the forefront of technology development for ATSC 3.0, including a recent successful pilot test of its last mile edge caching technology over ATSC 3.0. The company holds 283 licenses and CPs covering one-third of the U.S. population, outside of major metropolitan areas. It concentrates its services to rural America in second and third tier markets, the areas most in need of distance learning services. 

At its meeting with the FCC, the company touted the capabilities of “Broadcast Internet,” which involves the use of the ATSC 3.0 broadcast signal to send IP-based data to TVs and NextGen TV-enabled devices. Specifically it cited its work with Microsoft’s “Airband Initiative,” which uses TV white spaces to deliver wireless broadband. 

The FCC's E-Rate program uses money from the commission’s Universal Service Fund to provide discounts for telecommunications, internet access and internal connections to eligible schools and libraries. Last month, the commission announced the opening of a second funding year 2020 filing window to allow schools to request additional E-Rate funding specifically to address urgent on-campus bandwidth needs resulting from the heightened reliance on remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The window for new requests closed Oct. 16.

ARK asked the FCC to modify its interpretation of “classroom” under Section 254 of the Communications Act to permit E-Rate funds to support ATSC 3.0 receivers and/or edge caching micro data centers in the student’s homes to enable distance learning over a low power broadcaster’s IP multicasting feed. ARK also discussed how the distance learning IP multicast feed would be free to students and the school district and E-rate support would only be necessary for equipment under Category 2 of the Eligible Services List. 

ARK said it seeks no more than a temporary waiver to expire at the end of August 2021, one that can be achieved via interpretation of the term “classroom” in Section 254 of the Communications Act and is in full accord with the dictates of Section 10 of the Communications Act.2.

DALLAS—Ark Multicasting recently conducted a successful pilot of its last mile edge caching technology over the ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV standard.

The demo consisted of Ark caching 4K, HD and SD video files on a consumer edge device for video on-demand. The files were transmitted from a Low Power TV broadcast over-the-air environment. The consumer edge caching took place simultaneously with live linear TV seen on a Sony ATSC 3.0 TV separate from the caching device.

The files originated from Ark’s Dallas headquarters and were sent via FTP to Southwick, Mass. The pilot was conducted in partnership with Hitachi-Comark and the Comark Digital Services integration team.

Ark says that the demonstration validates many of the planned uses for ATSC 3.0. Also, “localized data caching means less buffering, faster downloads and better overall broadband,” said Ark CEO Joshua Weiss.

“It’s very exciting to see new and innovative implementations of ATSC 3.0 come to life,” added Madeleine Noland, president of ATSC. “Edge caching content in the home can serve a wide variety of purposes from relieving congestion on two-way IP networks to providing needed connectivity to rural or under-served populations. ... Kudos to Ark and Comark for their collaboration on this important use case.”

DALLAS—Ark Multicasting has announced that Joshua Weiss, a co-founder of the company, is being promoted to CEO. Weiss replaces outgoing CEO Vern Fotheringham.

Ark Multicasting was founded in 2018 and has focused on NextGen TV technology, including end-to-end IP multicast transmission from origination to end user. They are building out a footprint of NextGen TV stations, reportedly covering 100 million people with nearly 300 broadcast assets.

Fotheringham is staying on with Ark as the vice chairman and as an advisor to Weiss.

“I cannot thank Vern enough for his vision and leadership as we were standing this company up,” said Weiss. “I’m confident that the groundwork he has laid has set Ark up for success. I am so appreciative of his mentoring and leadership.

“I’m especially excited about the many projects we are currently working on that will demonstrate so much of Vern’s original vision with edge caching, autonomous driving and connected car trials, distance learning initiatives and some new IoT projects in the works,” Weiss continued. “We are finally a [sic] time when when these things are becoming a reality through Broadcast Internet Services on the Art Network of stations.”

For more information, visit www.arkmulticasting.com.  

DALLAS—ARK Multicasting Inc. announced that it has achieved an industry first—broadcasting both ATSC 1.0 and NEXTGEN TV ATSC 3.0 from the same equipment stack. The demo took place as part of the ARK trial market in Crockett, Texas, Oct. 2 with cooperation from Hitachi-Comark and their Comark Digital Services (CDS) division. The ATSC 1.0 signal was tested with a new Hitachi-Comark E-Compact series transmitter and an Ateme TITAN Live encoder.

Using the same transmission equipment with the addition of an ATSC 3.0 stack by Enensys, the signal was converted to NEXTGEN TV. Using a 64 QAM modulation scheme, the test ran at full power for two hours and confirmed connectivity on the fringe of the 41 dBu broadcast signal 35 miles away from the tower.

Testing was conducted using an Airwavz.tv Redzone Receiver in conjunction with their TvXplorer field test receiver running on a laptop. This successful dual mode testing between the legacy standard and NEXTGEN TV was the first of its kind.

In comparison to the cellular unicast model, ARK demonstrated its ability to serve the small town of Crockett with 150 petabytes (PB) of data transmission per day. This would translate to ~10,500 PB per day in a large market like ARK’s Dallas station.

ARK CEO, Vern Fotheringham, said, “We remain excited about the many opportunities NEXTGEN TV represents, and will continue to play our part as leaders in the new technology given the vast network of broadcast assets we control and our ability to be nimble as Low Power TV (LPTV) operators. ARK’s business applications for the standard will very shortly be tested in the rural city of Crockett, Texas, where we will deploy in concert with local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to improve rural broadband services. This recent test is just the beginning of many firsts that we intend to be able to announce.”

ARK says it was the first broadcaster to conduct end-to-end ATSC 3.0 broadcasting in September 2018. That demonstration originated with International Broadcasting Network (IBN) content being sent from Cedar Hill, Texas, over an Intelsat provided satellite IP transmission via their gateway and uplink services using a Newtec satellite IP hub. The signal was pulled down into the ARK lab environment at the Hitachi-Comark headquarters in Southwick, Mass. It was then transmitted using an ATSC 3.0 broadcast television signal into a 3.0 Samsung television. The test last week in Crocket also used the IBN network feed for the content stream.

“We are proud to be involved in yet another successful follow-on set of extremely important ATSC 3.0 tests with ARK Multicasting,” said Hitachi Comark President & CEO Dick Fiore. “Our DTV equipment, integration and field service capabilities for NEXTGEN TV, formerly known as ATSC 3.0, are unparalleled in the marketplace. We have made a significant investment in the NEXTGEN TV market over the last few years, lining up several key technology partnerships, and the result is a single source for fully integrated and tested end-to-end solutions.”

Enensys Technologies President and CEO Régis Le Roux said, “We are very proud and excited to be an important ATSC 3.0 technology provider and technical partner to ARK for yet another one of their NEXTGEN TV trials. Our role is to enable data delivery with confidence. We recognize this responsibility and are grateful to both ARK and Hitachi Comark for selecting Enensys for this trial.”

Airwavz CEO Bonnie Beeman said, “It’s a privilege to partner with ARK Multicasting as they deploy exciting NEXTGEN TV service across the U.S. and create a brand-new all-IP wireless pipe for video-hungry consumers.”

For a comprehensive source of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see ourATSC3 silo.