The major Verizon outage on Jan. 14, 2026 should serve as a pivotal moment for anyone who relies on cellular connectivity—whether Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, or others—to move voice and data across their networks.

This discussion is aimed primarily at the broadcast industry, which has increasingly leaned on these networks for critical communication in Electronic News Gathering (ENG). Cellular systems now support everything from basic courier coordination and news crew communication to IFB and, more recently, live cameras using various cellular bonding technologies. In my view, the industry has become too dependent on these networks.

Some may say, “What, me worry?” After all, we have dual-SIM phones and multiple carriers built into our bonding systems. Redundancy is good, but it is not enough in a world where so much hinges on cellular connectivity.

Imagine if a major catastrophic event had occurred that same day and news coverage needed to get on the air. Yes, dual-SIM devices might allow you to switch carriers, and bonding systems would try to use whatever networks remain. But you would be competing with other broadcasters, the general public, commercial users, and—most importantly—public safety agencies with priority access. You might get something on the air, but it would be far from guaranteed.

Now imagine something worse: multiple carriers going down simultaneously. In today’s environment, that scenario is not far-fetched and deserves serious consideration.

In recent years, many broadcasters—often guided by finance departments—have reduced or eliminated investments in conventional and legacy broadcast communication systems. With all due respect to those teams, this is a major mistake.

Throughout my career, I consistently pushed back on these cuts because I believed in maintaining these systems for exactly the kind of “doomsday” scenarios we’re now seeing glimpses of. These conversations were never easy, and many times the cuts happened anyway, no matter how firmly I made my case. But the point needed to be made.

Now is the time to reopen that conversation with your finance teams, VPs of Operations/Engineering, and General Managers. The recent outage is a perfect example of why reinvestment is necessary.

If your finance department still doesn’t see the value, you may still have options. If you have existing but underused infrastructure—VHF/UHF communications, microwave systems, satellite trucks—test them regularly and keep them operational.

Low-cost steps you can take now:

Licensing & Compliance

• Verify that your FCC licenses are valid; renew or reapply if needed.
• Ensure older systems still meet FCC compliance requirements.

VHF/UHF & IFB Systems

• Conduct field tests.
• Make repairs or updates as needed, then retest.

ENG Microwave Systems

• Test ENG and satellite vehicles.
• Perform mechanical inspections (engine, generator, tires, etc.).
• Test transmitters, RF camera receivers, and all related systems.
• Inspect NYCOIL and cabling.
• Verify mast operation, seals, and lubrication.
• For satellite trucks, book satellite time to confirm the full uplink chain—encoders, decoders, RF, transponder access, and return visibility at your broadcast center.

ENG Receive Sites

These are often the most critical—and the most neglected—systems.

• Inspect everything, fixed or rotational, from stem to stern.
• Perform full end-to-end tests: field → receive site → studio.

Other Technologies to Consider
Mesh networks, data repeaters, and emerging alternative technologies may offer additional resilience depending on your market and operational needs. Evaluate all available options.

The recent cellular outage is more than an inconvenience — it’s a warning. Use it to strengthen your case before the next disruption becomes something far more serious.

ORLANDO, Fla.—The National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC), which represents 700+ independent communications service providers, has announced that it is closing in on completing its first partnership agreements that would allow its members to deliver new MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) cellular services to members.

The group did not specify which telcos it might be working with, but the NCTC did say that it expects members to be ready to launch the bundled discounted services by Q4. 

Adding mobile services is an important step forward for the competitive position of NCTC’s members, which also provide broadband and video to 40+ million end-users in North America and the U.S. Territories. 

Faced with ongoing video sub loses from cord cutting, operators have found that discounted mobile services are an effective way to attract new customers or retain existing customers.

To deliver seamless, branded billing, tiered bundle discounts with broadband, and mobile device sales and services, the NCTA said that multiple suppliers will be incorporated into one program that would be invisible to member subscribers. That means operators can retain their brands while delivering significant discounts off national rates along with multiple plans and cost savings.

The NCTC also said that members who participate as an MVNO will have flexibility in the software and hardware they utilize, helping them tailor services based on their requirements and meet consumer demand for more choice.

“Mobile is increasingly crucial to many of our members who are seeking more options to meet the unique needs of their customers,” said Jared Baumann, vide president of technology innovation at NCTC. “Like other benefits of NCTC membership, our new MVNO agreements will harness our collective buying power to drive  value and ease of entry for members of all sizes. Now that NCTC is firmly in the mobile game, we can benefit operators and end-users across the country by offering the most competitive deals for high-quality services.”

“Success in today’s complex and competitive market hinges on collaboration,” continued Baumann. “Our new MVNO agreements align perfectly with the other group-based savings members already receive. Based on this, operators will be able to offer innovative new bundles and service offerings to their customers.”

NCTC’s commitment to offering MVNO services was announced in person at The Independent Show 2022. 

During the show, the association also announced its new name as the National Content & Technology Cooperative, along with a new logo and vision that included commitments to innovations for content providers, broadband providers and suppliers.

PHOENIX—The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the way students across the country are learning and connecting with schools, faculty and each other. At Grand Canyon University, our plan to use live streaming technology to connect current and potential students and their families with the school and campus life started months before quarantine. We wanted to make the school as accessible as possible for prospective students that couldn’t physically visit before making their final college decision. We previously created campus tour videos using a cell phone and a gimbal, but the Admissions department wanted to make the experience more dynamic and interactive.

Our media group produces all types of content including commercials, live events and web videos. Live interactive video was paramount to generating student excitement and engagement, while increasing enrollment. We talked to students and staff about how we could amp up our programming and quickly moved from cell phones to a cellular-bonded backpack from LiveU. The LiveU enabled our digital media crew and broadcast students to up the production value by implementing higher-end cameras, cutting to different scenes across campus, and adding a studio element so viewers could ask questions in the YouTube chat and have them answered on stream. We have a roving team with the LiveU backpack that can toss back to the studio so they can get to the next live shot in a different area on campus.

The live streaming created a fully broad campus experience that had a lot of interactivity and variety. Over the summer, we talked about ways to use live streaming to cover more outdoor events. The LiveU helps us distribute mobile crews to capture content that we can distribute to viewers.

A NEW WAY OF APPROACHING PRODUCTIONS

When you think about the vast number of live events that typically happen on a college campus, of course they are generally built around the idea of a mass gathering of people. That is going to be different this year. It already has been. As we head into the fall, we are talking about a lot of ways to use live streaming to take experiences that used to be a lot of people in one place and distribute them out.

One of the examples is a weekly chapel service, where there would normally be 5,000–7,000 people in the arena. They are going to have to distribute that and do a lot of that at remote sites and individual streaming viewers. It’s been one of the big challenges that I am sure everybody who’s in my boat is thinking about.

Normally, when you build a live production, you have a large crew. It’s a lot of people wedged in a little room all breathing the same air, which we can’t do anymore. So one of the things we’ve been thinking about is how to use more distributed crews and more mobile crews. The LiveU and the ability to move around—the flexibility and the portability side of it is going to be a huge factor. So many of these events are no longer in a building with great wired connections—they are going to be outside. We have amazing weather in Arizona throughout the fall. We will have all these events outside so then suddenly you wonder, “How do we get a connection out there?” The LiveU really answers that.

RETURN OF SPORTS

We are approaching live sports coverage—whether it returns for fall or winter sports—similar to our game plan for this past spring semester. When streaming live sports you are trying to take that experience and extend it out to this broader viewership. One of the things that is unique about GCU is that we have a campus with 24,000 students and an additional 70,000 that take classes online.

We have a huge body of students that identify with the university and its athletic programs and so we try to give them an equal experience as our traditional ground campus students and let them be a fan and be connected. It’s really all about capturing what’s going on and sharing this with a broader group of people.

Steven Niedzielski is a senior multimedia manager at Grand Canyon University, where he brings 20 years of experience in pro video workflows, managing technical and creative professionals. Niedzielski produces compelling marketing content and implements cutting-edge technology. He can be contacted at Steven.Niedzielski@gce.com.

For more information, visit https://get.liveu.tv/.

“It is not strange...to mistake change for progress.” -Millard Fillmore

I’d like to turn the clock back more than 70 years to 1948, when the first live television remotes began. They were enabled by microwave transmissions and initially used just for parades and specials. Microwave became the every-day solution for remote news and sports programming by the early 1970s.

Shortly thereafter, new technologies—first analog satellite newsgathering in the late 70s, followed by digital SNG and microwave transmissions—provided greater access and significantly higher quality while using bandwidth more efficiently.

While I am not one who pines for the past, I believe we lost something important along the way. With this technological progress came the curse of latency, which has cost TV its intimacy. In today’s content landscape where authenticity is prized by a demanding audience, delays are not free. The price is a high one that we cannot afford to continue to pay. Let me explain.

THE DOOR TO DELAY

One advantage of those early remotes was that they were analog and not subject to any meaningful delays. A correspondent’s or a sportscaster’s report would be beamed to the studio at the speed of light, where it would be switched, released over the television transmitter and sent back for the contributor to view immediately on an off-air monitor. They were instantly and intimately connected to the discussion with the studio.

As time marched forward and digital improved, correspondents in the field were forced by a technology-induced delay to depend upon an audio-only mix-minus IFB (interrupted fold back). They could hear, but not see the people they were communicating with, robbing them of subtle, but vital visual cues from their studio counterparts. Later HDTV and digital television transmission added further delay, rendering the possibility of the off-air real-time monitor a thing of the past.

Since the door to delay had already been opened, it was just business as usual when new compression algorithms were used to squeeze a full broadcast-quality signal onto a couple of cell signals. Bonded cellular was remarkable in that it allowed crews to contribute with only a backpack of equipment, freeing them to make reports from more locations, at a dramatically lower cost. No need for trucks! The trade-off was even more latency, this time, significantly magnifying the delay in the reporter's path back to the studio.

The visual impact was dramatic and remains today in that all too familiar scene of reporters foolishly nodding their collective heads, sometimes at painfully inappropriate moments. Effectively, the studio is taking the heavily delayed remote feeds seconds before the beginning of reporters reply. The “yada, yada, yadas” that Jerry Seinfeld so aptly described have become an inescapable part of every-day broadcasts.

LOSING THE BACK AND FORTH

I am no Luddite. I have spent decades optimizing signal paths, sometimes obsessing over hundredths of milliseconds, while always embracing the forward march of technology. But I am troubled by our acceptance of that loss of intimacy. Producers are taught to bring the viewer into the story; to make them part of the family. When a reporter in the field and their anchor communicate instantly, their banter adds life and energy to the story. This only works when they are present in the moment in a way that lets the viewer witness the dynamics of their interpersonal relationships.

We’ve lost the back and forth of real conversation. The relationship between today’s remote and host is as cold as a factory—one person on an assembly line handing off the widget to the next worker. It’s mechanical, contrived, distracting and harms the relationships between the host and reporters while alienating the audience. Worst of all, it is totally unnecessary.

Audiences are attracted to stories and engaging casts. We should be smart enough to recognize the value inherent in delivering that experience. We can recapture that lost intimacy and rivet the viewer to the screen not only with the story but with the people behind the story.

The combination of high bandwidth IP everywhere and mobile devices with remarkable processors and built-in cameras and screens can replace traditional equipment while changing everything. High-quality, low-cost, two-way visual communication between host and remote opens up totally new, dynamic ways of telling a story. A reporter on location can share the emotion of the moment with the anchor and the audience. A sportscaster on the sidelines can narrate over B-roll, or even do play by plays remotely. Existing technologies can provide two-way hyper-low latency between studio and field, making it possible to recapture lost intimacy and inspire new forms of storytelling.

Real progress means we can have it all!

Want to dig into this some more? Join me in Las Vegas at NAB, on April 9 at 9 a.m. in room N258 in the LVCC where I’ll be speaking on this in detail at "Beyond Bonded Cellular; A Workflow for Broadcast Remotes via Smartphone." Hope to see you there.

Larry Thaler is the president of Positive Flux, a consulting firm that specializes in helping media companies take advantage of the rapid changes occurring in the industry. He can be reached viaTV Technology.

You need to have your head in the sand these days to avoid talk about the next-generation wireless technology commonly known as 5G.

Proponents of 5G technology tout its ability to create new jobs; spark the growth of “smart cities”; manage command, control and payload for unmanned aircraft systems; and enable significant innovations in health care, transportation and public safety. And while it might be easy to discount 5G as simply a wireless technology, there is significant potential opportunity here for broadcasters, too.

Broadcasters would be wise to educate themselves now about what 5G is and how it could affect the broadcast industry going forward.

5G principally refers to a wireless standard adopted by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (“3GPP”) in December 2017 known as 5G NR (“5G” because it is the fifth generation wireless standard and “NR” for “New Radio”), although some early 5G deployments rely on other 5G standards.

The Federal Communications Commission, for its part, appears fully committed to advancing 5G in the United States. Chairman Ajit Pai and other FCC commissioners regularly speak about the importance of winning the race to 5G, and the commission has backed its words with actions, taking a number of steps to make spectrum available for 5G applications and adopting new rules over the past year to streamline deployment of the potentially hundreds of thousands of small wireless facilities needed to take full advantage of 5G technologies.

The competition to be the “first to 5G” exists both at home and abroad. Here in the United States, wireless providers are vying to be the first to offer 5G, with trial launches already underway in some markets and the promise of nationwide 5G networks within the next few years. Meanwhile, the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and others are battling to be the first country to deploy a commercially viable, large-scale 5G network, which comes not only with bragging rights and the direct benefits that come from deploying a next-generation technology, but also the opportunity to establish the features and implementations to be used worldwide, fueling equipment manufacturing and exports.

5G CHARACTERISTICS

One of the features of the 5G NR standard is that it can operate on a wide variety of frequencies. 5G divides spectrum into two groups: FR1 (450 MHz – 6 GHz) and FR2 (24 GHz – 52 GHz) (millimeter wave spectrum). Today’s mainstream wireless networks operate on the low and mid-band spectrum associated with FR1, which travels greater distances and, particularly on the lower end of the frequency range (near existing broadcast spectrum), features stronger building penetration. Millimeter wave spectrum, meanwhile, is characterized by short wavelengths and large bands that can carry substantial amounts of data.

The use of millimeter wave spectrum as part of 5G networks has the potential to transform both how wireless providers deliver data and how Americans consume it. To take advantage of the benefits of millimeter wave spectrum, wireless carriers plan to deploy hundreds of thousands of new small cells — in many cases several per square mile. Networks utilizing this new infrastructure promise to offer more speed, more capacity and lower latency than existing networks. The FCC recently reached a milestone in the transition to next-generation wireless networks with the conclusion of Auction 101, the nation’s first auction of millimeter wave spectrum for the deployment of 5G services.

[Read: ONE Media Pitches FCC Commissioner O'Reilly On 3.0 As Part Of 5G Deployment]

The wireless industry trade group CTIA has estimated that 5G networks, using millimeter wave technology, will generate a throughput 10 times faster than 4G: possibly reaching over 1 Gbps. 5G networks will also offer connection density up to 100 times greater than 4G, meaning more devices will be able to utilize the same frequencies. Finally, lower latency associated with 5G networks will allow for near real-time interactions, allowing wireless networks to fuel applications like virtual reality and remote medical services that are not possible today.

Wireless providers are adopting different approaches to 5G — dictated, in large part, by their existing spectrum holdings. T-Mobile is planning to rely heavily on the 600 MHz spectrum that it acquired in the recent TV Broadcast Incentive Auction for its initial 5G deployments, providing broad coverage and in-building penetration that is not possible with higher band spectrum. AT&T and Verizon, which hold licenses for large amounts of spectrum in the 28 GHz, 37 GHz and 39 GHz bands, are focused on launching 5G using their millimeter wave spectrum, which will require a substantial investment in dense infrastructure to achieve the speed and capacity benefits that come with millimeter wave deployments. Sprint’s 5G plans, meanwhile, center around using “massive MIMO” — the use of 64 transmitters and receivers in a single array — to optimize its existing 2.5 GHz spectrum.

While the wireless industry is working to deliver its next generation networks, broadcasters are undergoing a technological renaissance of their own. On the radio side, adoption of digital radio technology continues to expand as more broadcasters employ in-band on-channel digital transmissions and consumers and auto manufacturers increasingly embrace digital radio receivers. On the television side, meanwhile, ATSC 3.0 promises to allow broadcasters to make better use of their spectrum by utilizing IP-based delivery for both video and data content, increasing the usable bandwidth associated with each channel and allowing better interconnectivity with other IP-based systems.

For now, 5G and digital broadcast technologies are operating on parallel paths. But just as the internet has blurred the line between content creators and content distributors, emerging transmission technologies have the potential to blur the lines between wireless providers and broadcasters.

After all, even on existing 4G networks, wireless users consume a substantial amount of data to stream audio and video content. Meanwhile, emerging digital broadcast technologies may allow broadcasters to think about broadcasting less as an audio or video service and more as a service for delivering data, whether it be audio content, video content, or something else entirely. Put another way, just as 5G may enable increased use of traditional wireless spectrum for distribution of audio and video content, digital radio and ATSC 3.0 may enable the increased use of broadcast spectrum for distribution of data.

While there is likely to be increasing overlap between wireless and broadcasting in the future, the technologies are just as likely to emerge as complementary services as competing ones. Even as technology continues to expand the utility of wireless and broadcasting alike, each will offer its own strengths. While 5G has the potential to revolutionize the way consumers interact with information and with each other, emerging 5G networks are still built around a traditional one-to-one architecture that prioritizes customization and on-demand content delivery over a shared experience.

While it technically may be possible to broadcast content over 5G networks, not only would that require new equipment to reach devices like radios and TVs, but it would not seem to be the best use of 5G networks designed around densification. Nevertheless, streaming is likely to be a major consumer feature of 5G, and broadcasters should be prepared to take advantage of the increased bandwidth and low latency that 5G networks will offer.

[Read: Intel: 5G Will Spur $1.3T Global M&E Market Over Next Decade]

Broadcasting’s greatest — and unique — strength, meanwhile, remains its ability to efficiently distribute content to many recipients at the same time. To the extent broadcasters attempt to expand their use of spectrum for data services, therefore, the most likely use cases are those intended to reach large audiences (e.g., software updates, music albums, TV shows, movies, etc.) and that require a wide geographic reach, including areas that can’t be reached readily or efficiently by small cells.

Importantly, 5G has the potential to transform and improve how broadcasters can operate behind the scenes, as well. Today, broadcasters increasingly rely on wireless networks for everything from uploading a news story from the field to transmitting entire remote broadcasts. 5G networks promise to enhance the reliability of existing wireless data transmissions while making them useful for more data-intensive applications, such as point-to-point links, that currently are frequently relegated to microwave, fiber or satellite.

The time is now for broadcasters to develop their plans for the 5G future. Although widespread availability of 5G services is not yet here, the promotion of 5G is already in overdrive, and broadcasters should begin planning now for how they can ensure that 5G is an asset rather than a liability. This may include steps such as expanding their streaming offerings to better compete against the plethora of services likely to take advantage of 5G networks in coming years and compete for space on the dashboard to updating capital planning budgets to account for purchases of 5G enabled hardware.

Broadcasters have repeatedly demonstrated remarkable dexterity in adapting to technological change. In the past 20 years alone, they have adapted to the rise of the internet as a content delivery medium to 3G and then 4G wireless services, not only meeting competition head on, but also utilizing new technologies to improve their own product, developing new broadcast standards from digital radio and IBOC on the radio side to DTV and ATSC 3.0 for television.

5G presents a potential opportunity to take things to another level, delivering performance that rivals the best wireline internet services with the flexibility of wireless connection. Consumer electronics companies, medical device manufacturers, city planners, automobile manufacturers and others are already planning for new and exciting ways to take advantage of 5G services, and broadcasters would be wise to be right beside them.

The author is a partner in the telecommunications, media and technology practice at Wiley Rein LLP. Wiley Rein Engineering Consultant Richard Engelman and Consulting Counsel Bruce A. Romano contributed to this commentary.

PHOENIX—Cars will soon regularly receive ATSC 3.0 signals from Phoenix broadcasters taking part in the latest facet of an ongoing trial of Next-Gen TV.

Pearl TV, which is leading the Phoenix Model Market project of 12 stations, and Avis Budget Group announced Oct. 15 they will begin testing various use cases for TV-delivered signals to passenger cars early next year.

“We are excited about it. There are great use cases for automotive, and they are an interesting company,” says Anne Schelle, Pearl TV managing director. “They are one of the largest fleet owners of cars and certainly positioning themselves for the future of connected cars and the shared car environment.”

Possible use cases extend beyond basic reception of OTA video and audio to a variety of interactive capabilities. “We have a general idea of the use cases,” says Schelle. “Now we are just working through the details.”

Avis Budget Group is “on a mission” to reinvent the consumer experience by leveraging mobile apps, digital platforms and connected cars, says Arthur Orduna, executive vice president and chief innovation officer for the rental car company. Information collected during the trial will help Avis Budget Group determine the best new in-car configurations to offer customers in the future, he adds.

One goal of the Phoenix Model Market project is to collect data on how consumers interact with ATSC 3.0 and as well as their preferences with the goal of assisting the TV industry in making a successful launch of standard around the country.

As part of those efforts, Pearl TV will release a consumer survey by month’s end to gauge consumer perceptions about Next-Gen TV content and quality. “We will also be asking consumers about automotive, so we will be able to reflect that in the trial as well,” says Schelle.

For the passenger car trial, OTA-delivered video and audio entertainment will be delivered to vehicles using the ATSC 3.0 interactive runtime environment with support for digital rights management and AC-4 multichannel audio decoding.

While planning is still ongoing, the types of reception devices under consideration include plug-in 3.0 receivers for installed entertainment systems, such as headrest screens, and mobile TV reception on tablets, according to Pearl TV.

For the interactive portion of the trial, various features are being considered, such as electronic guides, program-specific text overlays, rental car information, coupons and maps.

For later projects, software updates, map downloads and real-time traffic information could be delivered to cars from stations transmitting 3.0, according to Pearl TV.

Chetan Sharma, a consultant focused on mobile industry technology and strategy, says ATSC 3.0 along with satellite, Wi-Fi and cellular can provide a hybrid of communications services for vehicular data delivery. A telematics device can then decide at any given moment what’s the best mode of delivery for the vehicle.

“If you are at your house with a Wi-Fi hotspot, you download software,” says Sharma, who has authored a white paper on the topic, entitled “ATSC 3.0 Automotive Opportunity.”

“If you are on the road and there is a software update that’s needed or a mapping content update, then maybe ATSC 3.0 works better.”

Synchronization using a cellular network is essential for the backchannel link, which could verify that an upload via 3.0, Wi-Fi or satellite was successful, he says.

“With the hybrid model, you have more accessibility as an automobile OEM that you otherwise wouldn’t have,” he says, adding that multiple delivery paths add redundancy, which may prove to be particularly important for data bound for cars.

Both Sharma and Schelle agree that 3.0 OTA transmission makes delivery of data to vehicles far more economical than unicast transmission of data via a cell phone network. “With broadcast everybody gets the same content and the economics of its delivery work much better,” says Sharma.

Besides the one-to-many nature of broadcasting, 3.0 is particularly suited to this type of application because of its “levels of compression and the ability to deliver indoors,” says Schelle.

The economic equation also favors broadcasting from a deployment point of view, she says. “What it costs for us to deploy is minimal compared to what it costs the carriers to provide certain kinds of use cases,” says Schelle.

In Phoenix, Next-Gen TV transmission to vehicles will originate from the local Univision station, although a second 3.0 will likely be place by time the test begins and may also be used, says Schelle.

To date, the 3.0 transmission from the Univision station has proven it can reliably deliver data to moving cars, such as the one in which FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly rode this spring while visiting Phoenix for a firsthand look at the 3.0 deployment, she says.

Repeaters and boosters are under consideration for use during the trial with Budget Avis Group, but no definite plans for deployment have been made, Schelle adds.

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

Every pundit worth his or her salt is making predictions about the impact of 5G on the world economy. Intel just released a report that attempts to measure that impact on the media and entertainment market.

According to a new “5G Economics of Entertainment Report,” commissioned by Intel and conducted by Ovum, nearly $3 trillion in cumulative revenue opportunities will be spurred by wireless technology from 2019-2028 and experiences enabled by 5G networks will account for nearly half of it (close to $1.3 trillion).

The report cites 2025 as the “tipping point” for 5G, predicting that by then, 57 percent of global wireless media revenues will be generated by the next-gen cellular standard, which promises bandwidth up to 100 Gbps. With speeds potentially up to 1,000x faster than the current 4G protocol, the buffering issues that come with livestreaming and large downloads will be a thing of the past.

5G’s speed will also enable the growth of immersive services such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), which will generate more than $140 billion in cumulative revenues between 2021 and 2028. Ovum predicts that gaming will be at the forefront of 5G-led innovations, with AR gaming comprising annual revenues of nearly $36 billion globally, or more than 90 percent of 5G AR revenues.

By 2028, new “immersive,” currently non-existent applications will provide an annual revenue bucket of $67 billion, which is the value of the entire current global mobile media market--video, music and games–in 2017, Ovum predicts.

For the current media market, 5G is characterized by Ovum as a “major competitive asset” which will allow telecom companies to better compete with cable, satellite and IPTV. The term “cord-cutting” will seem like an anachronism a decade from now as telcos offering 5G will be able to offer most, if not more than the same services as current wired cable service providers.

5G will also have a major impact on mobile display advertising, as higher speeds will enable social and media immersive experiences, leading to an expected market of $178 billion worldwide by 2028.

The average monthly traffic per 5G subscriber will grow from 11.7GB in 2019 to 84.4GB per month in 2028, at which point video will account for 90 percent of all 5G traffic, according to the report. Ovum also warns that the demand for applications for 5G will mean that evolved 3G and 4G networks will suffer as their capacity will be insufficient to handle the increased video viewing time, content evolution to higher resolutions, more embedded media and immersive experiences.

“5G will inevitably shake up the media and entertainment landscape. It will be a major competitive asset if companies adapt, said Jonathan Wood, general manager of Business Development & Partnerships, 5G Next Generation and Standards at Intel. “If not, they risk failure or even extinction.”

Broadcasters must protect their C-band satellite downlink sites from future interference and push back against plans that would completely rearrange the way the FCC allows C-band satellite channels to be received.

The cellular industry wants the FCC to reallocate C-band frequencies, which could take 100 MHz or more away from what is currently available for every C-band dish owner to use. The proposed frequency rearrangement could require every dish owner to replace every single C-band LNB, the amplifiers at the front of every dish. It could also require dish owners to purchase new TI (terrestrial interference) blocking filters to mate with every C-band LNB.

If the FCC authorizes cellular companies to take away part of what is now C-band for satellite reception, broadcasters will want to ensure that the cellular companies provide every registered C-band downlink with whatever new equipment is needed. That means paying for all new tapered interference filters and all new tapered C-band LNB amplifiers.

They also will want the FCC to ensure that any future cellular transmission does not interfere with the new tapered C-band satellite channels. This will be especially important when cell towers are located near a C-band satellite downlink site.

[Read: FCC Advances Goal Of Opening C-Band]

Broadcasters that do not register their sites now risk having to bear the full cost of any new equipment needed after any FCC rearrangement of C-band satellite channels. Registering now is the first step to preventing the loss of C-band frequencies.

The agency recently extended its filing deadline for existing earth stations to be registered until Oct. 17, 2018. (That’s an extension from the previous July deadline). Broadcasters that have not already done so must register their C-band downlinks with the FCC now. It is critical that all existing C-band dishes are registered with the FCC.

Satellite operator SES has announced it may pay for the FCC application fee when C-band antenna owners register their existing C-band dishes with the FCC before Oct. 17. This new SES offer could save C-band downlink owners thousands of dollars in FCC filing fees. 

SES has developed an easy-to-follow online method for filing with the FCC. Visit the SES website to start the process now. You can also contact them at a special email address set up for filers at fccregistration@ses.com to inquire about the reimbursement and registration programs or call them at 609-987-4300.

Act now to register and help the broadcast community influence FCC decisionmaking by demonstrating with the deluge of site registrations the widespread use of C-band downlinks.

When the maximum number of C-band antenna sites register with the FCC, the agency may be inclined to halt its reallocation of C-band satellite spectrum for use by wireless companies, or at least minimize it. More registered sites mean more difficulty and cost for the cellular companies wanting to take away part of the current C-band downlink spectrum.

Broadcasters must push back against the cellular companies. Make them consider the high cost of rearranging the C-band by insisting the FCC mandate they offer remedies to current C-band downlink sites.

Don’t wait. Register your C-band satellite downlink sites with the FCC today!

John Joslin is the president of DAWNco. 

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.”

As the broadcast repack generates sales of transmitters, antennas and tower services, and ATSC 3.0 gains acceptance as the next-gen broadcast standard, improvements to cable and fiber now allow them to carry the astounding data rates 12G, and the development of bonded cellular has turned the remote video process on its ear. If you think about it, all these changes happened in the last 10 years—mostly in the last five years. Interesting times, indeed.

EGATEL showed its TLWH7900 transmitters series that includes a liquid-cooled 2RU 19-inch amplifier module for power output up to 17 kW. The company also highlighted its TUWH1000 and RUWH1000 compact transmitters, which reach output powers up to 125 W in a single rack unit.

GATESAIR unveiled HTML5-based graphical user interfaces for their Maxiva UHF (ULXTE, UAXTE) and VHF (VAXTE) transmitters that enable intuitive system navigation and monitoring from tablets and smartphones. With advanced transmitter security features, the HTML5 user interfaces prevent outside intrusions and protect broadcasters throughout the repack and ATSC 3.0 transitions.

HITACHI-COMARK debuted a VHF Band 1 (54-88 MHz) version of its Parallax solid-state liquid-cooled transmitter for ATSC 1.0 and 3.0. This new model supports power levels up to 41 kW, and shares construction and usability functions with Parallax UHF and VHF Band 3 models.

ITELCO rolled out a hybrid air/liquid cooling transmitter called the “Geyserty,” which uses the company’s Geysertek technology to ensure that RF pallet temperatures, direct and reflected power and liquid pressure are maintained at levels to provide maximum transmitter efficiency.

ROHDE & SCHWARZ showed the TLU9 GapFiller transmitter that uses the company’s smartEC key technology to permit the system to automatically adapt in real time to complex and varying echo scenarios. The TLU9 can provide up to 200 watts of power in a chassis that is just 2RU.

TEAMCAST unveiled a new software version for its Vortex II high-end ATSC 1.0/3.0 rack exciter with support for layered-division-multiplexing (LDM) modulation, multiple-PLPs and time-division-multiplexing (TDM) framing, forward error correction, redundant input switching and TX ID signaling.

THOMSON BROADCAST announced the Gigativy, an 18 kW solid-state transmitter that uses Doherty technology for maximum efficiency. Capable of both ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 operation, Gigativy is for UHF transmission.

ANTENNAS/COMPONENTS

ALIVE TELECOM featured its UHF antenna line, such as the ATC-BB100-U broadband omnidirectional model, which has a Fiberglas radome. With more than 10 dB of gain, the ATC-BB100-U is targeted at multichannel applications.

BURK TECHNOLOGY unveiled its Arcturus RF site monitoring system, which provides protection for multiplexed antenna sites. The device monitors important parameters and takes immediate action when signals reach limits, minimizing the risk of damage to RF components.

DIELECTRIC showed its new TFU-WB, a low-cost, side-mount, UHF broadband pylon antenna designed for higher-voltage handling capabilities. The TFUWB offers 75-percent less windload, lower overall weight, and exceptional cost-efficiency, in contrast to traditional broadband arrays. Post-repack, TFU-WB antennas can serve as auxiliary arrays or in single-frequency networks.

ERI launched a series of liquid-cooled RF loads for UHF operation. These new RF loads are less than 45-inches long and weigh less than 22 pounds, and models are available with 3 1/8-inch, 4 1/16-inch, and 6 1/8-inch swivel-flange female inputs.

JAMPRO announced its Futurization Technology that provides the ability for future polarization ratio adjustment without costly antenna modifications, including horizontal, elliptical, circular and vertical polarization.

RFS and MYAT partnered to produce filters for ATSC 3.0 broadcasting in a repack environment, including new cast six-and eight-pole mask filters that dissipate heat more evenly than previous soldered filters and have a lower insertion loss. MYAT will provide assembly and integration into its RF transmission systems.

SATELLITE, MICROWAVE AND REMOTE

AMT debuted its StreetNode portable BAS LTE backpack ENG solution that incorporates the company’s StreetNode Lite technology within a hard shell weatherized backpack. It offers bidirectional ENG connectivity from the field to the studio with advanced low delay HEVC uplink video compression technology. Also new is StreetNode Lite the company’s latest User Equipment (UE) edition to its ENGenesis BAS LTE network.

IMT-VISLINK spotlighted its NewsLink system that integrates a mobile vehicle with a station’s studio using a bidirectional data link. NewsLink provides the studio’s Internet access to the mobile vehicle, as well as IFB, remote control and even prompter script updates.

MARSHALL ELECTRONICS partnered with IMT to show a remote video solution that uses Marshall’s CV502 mini POV camera. On the IMT side, it used the IMTDragonFly COFDM wireless video transmitter that’s good for a few hundred meters of wireless transmission.

CELLULAR

COMREX showed its LiveShot Portable, a system that delivers live, two-way, HD video and audio over a range of IP and cellular networks at latencies as low as 200ms. The lightweight 3G/4G-compatible system has a two-way cue channel (IFB), and can be mounted on a camera back for easy portability.

DEJERO demonstrated CellSat, which combines bonded cellular connections with a satellite uplink to provide highly reliable remote feeds. CellSat uses the company’s network blending technology and an Intelsat satellite feed to carry the necessary data for clean signals with no breakup. Also new was the GateWay M6E6 router, which allows crews working on location to access their newsroom or media asset management systems, send and receive large files, access cloud services used for collaboration, and communicate with their colleagues back at the studio.

LIVEU debuted the LU600 camera-mount IP data system that can deliver a bitrate up to 20 Mbps and file transfers up to 80, using a bonded cellular connection that tops out at 100 Mbps. The LU600 is field upgradable to H.265 HEVC and is controlled using an integrated fiveinch touchscreen.

TVU NETWORKS announced that its TVU One newsgathering transmitter, TVU MLink/MLink 4K encoding solution, TVU Anywhere mobile transmitter apps and the TVU Grid live video switching, routing, and distribution system, now all support HEVC.

VIDOVATION featured the new AviWest PRO380-RA HEVC 3G/4G bonded cellular video transmission system that uses eight internal modems. The lightweight unit can be camera mounted, and its two H.265 (HEVC) codecs provide HD and 4K links using the lowest possible bandwidth.

IP & STREAMING

AKAMAI announced new security features for its platform, including improvements for cloud services as well as new enterprise security features, including integrated application security controls, more relevant and actionable threat intelligence, and streamlined analysis and incident response.

ARTEL featured its Quarra line of PTP Ethernet switches, which meet the proposed SMPTE 2110 standard for IP video. The Quarra line uses the IEEE 1588 precision time protocol that can synchronize device clocks to within nanoseconds across a large network with many hundreds of nodes.

DVEO highlighted its MiniStreamer HDSDI/IP single-channel H.264/AVC TS encoder. MiniStreamer supports most industry standard protocols such as UDP or RTP with unicast or multicast. The unit encodes a single IP stream at 0.1 to 60 Mbps, at resolutions up to 1080p 30/1080i 60.

SIGNAL TRANSPORT

BARNFIND launched the BTF1-41 series, its first BarnOne product with 12G capacity and built-in SDI-to-IP transcoding. The series includes the BarnStudio control system, and offers the same third-party control as Barnfind’s existing products.

CAMPLEX rolled out the HF-TS24 24-channel single-mode tactical fiber optic cable with a polyurethane jacket can be used for temporary deployment directly on the ground. The cables meet outdoor tactical needs for broadcast and pro-audio applications that require outdoor-rated crush and impact resistance, and cables are available with LC, SC or ST connectors and in a variety of lengths.

MULTIDYNE featured its FiberSaver 12G product line, which offers wavelength agnostic inputs that can to multiplex any digital optical signal over one fiber in either direction. In addition, the FS-12G works as optical repeater, since each signal is internally regenerated in its appropriate wavelength, which allows transmission distances up to 80 kilometers.

SWIT ELECTRONICS displayed the CW-SH150 3G-SDI and HDMI wireless transmission system, which consists of a camera-mounted transmitter and portable receiver. Good for up to 150 meters, the CW-SH150 provides uncompressed transmission with only 1 ms of latency.

CABLE, FIBER & CONNECTORS
CABLE

BELDEN debuted new Stadium Cables for indoor and outdoor use. The Stadium Cable series is available in coax versions (RG6 and RG11), in triax camera cable versions (RG59 and RG11) and SMPTE Hybrid cable versions.

MOGAMI, part of MARSHALL ELECTRONICS, featured its 2534 quad cable for high-performance studio audio applications. Designed to fight hum and RF interference, Mogami 2534 provides an improvement in signal to noise of 10-20 dB over equivalent twisted pair cables.

SOMMER CABLE featured its Transit MC 3202 HD combo cable, a multi-strand cable that contains three coax cables, two shielded twisted pairs and a larger pair of wires for power transmission. Designed for 4K applications, Transit MC 3202 HD is flexible yet meets the needs of rugged professional applications.

FIBER

APANTAC displayed its SDI-FIB-Tx/Rx fiber transmit/receive system, which converts an HD-SDI signal for fiber transmission. The compact SDI-FIB-Tx/Rx modules support transmission up to 18 miles using single-mode fiber.

GRASS VALLEY demonstrated its Lumo high-density 1RU frame with 36 SFPbased fiber converters, targeted at large 3G distribution systems. Lumo reduces cabling concerns by putting fiber connectivity on one side of the unit and coax electrical on the other. Cards are hot swappable and the unit has remote system health monitoring for all key components, including optical signal strength.

LINK ELECTRONICS showed the PFO-100-T&R fiber transport system for 3G-SDI or ASI transmission, which operates with single-mode fiber optics cable, or multi-mode fiber can be requested. The Link PFO series has signal jitter elimination circuitry to ensure high-quality signal transmission over long distances.

OPTICAL CABLE CORP. introduced the SMPTE-Essential, a SMPTE hybrid fiber cable. Intended for controlled environments, OCC’s SMPTE-Essential is fully SMPTE 311 compliant and 98-percent braided shield coverage.

STUDIO TECHNOLOGIES showed its Live-Link Mini remote camera interface system, which allows a camera to be run at a distance from a production truck. Using a single strand of fiber for bidirectional signals, the Live-Link Mini handles return video, intercom and tally signals, and provides two high-quality audio inputs for talent feeds from the camera end.

CONNECTORS

CLARK WIRE & CABLE debuted new DT12 connectors that are rugged and weather resistant for both indoor and outdoor broadcast environments. The new connectors feature aluminum back shells that are virtually crush and corrosion proof, and the male connector has a stainless steel mating thread coupling that is dent resistant. The electrical contacts are made from gold plated, screw-machined copper.

LEMO introduced its new 3 GHz 75-Ohm coaxial contact connection system that can be used in broadcast connector applications and combines multiple HD-SDI BNC connectors into one module. The product is well suited for 3x coaxial (HD), 4x coaxial (4K) and 10x coaxial (8K) applications.

NEMAL highlighted its FOCC24 series SMPTE 311 HDTV camera cable, which has been approved by all the major camera manufacturers. FOCC24 includes versions for studio use, outdoor use, fixed installation applications with either single or multiple cameras, and an ultra-flexible miniature version.

NEUTRIK featured its new opticalCon MTP 24 fiber optic connector, which has a ruggedized and dirt-protected 24-channel fiber optic connection system based in a multi-fiber-push-on (MTP) shell. The connector can be cleaned without any tools, and it is also rated at IP65 for dust and water, if properly seated in a sealing connector.

SAM WOO ELECTRONICS showed a variety of connectors, including the SW series that’s targeted at professional camera applications. SW connectors are rated at IP67 for water and dust resistance.

ASSEMBLIES & ACCESSORIES

BITTREE spotlighted its 12G+ Mini-WECO video patchbay, which has 2x32 jacks in a 1 RU configuration. The 12G+ is tested to 24 GHz and will work with HD/SDI, UHD/SDI, 4K, 8K, and HDR applications, and is SMPTE 292M, 424M, 2081-1 and 2082-1 compliant.

CANARE showed its 32MCK-ST, a 75-Ohm mid-size video patchbay capable of handling 12G-SDI signals. The patch panel has a return loss of 4dB or greater at 12 GHz, and uses standard BNC rear connections.

SWITCHCRAFT demonstrated its Ultra VideoPatch line that includes a 4K video patching solutions. It Mini-WECO single jacks, and meets SMTPE ST 2081-1 and ST 2082-1 standards with a life cycle of 30,000.

By now you’ve heard a lot of buzz about the new wireless mobile technology called 5G (for 5th Generation) which promises blazing fast speeds and other benefits. Later this month the standards committee 3GPP will be finalizing the standard architecture specifications, paving the way for commercial rollouts and so it’s the perfect time to gaze into our crystal ball and predict some ways 5G will affect the television business.

BUILDING ON THE FACTS

If we’re predicting the future, let’s start with some facts. 5G is anticipated to offer significantly improved download data rates when compared with 4G LTE. 4G (without LTE enhancements) tops out at about 100 Mb/s in a perfect environment. I am sitting here in the shadow of a cell tower and getting 78Mb/s on my iPhone with a 4ms ping time. 5G is predicted to support 10Gb/s, or 100 times faster speeds with latency under 1ms. Even discounting for real-world scenarios, this is a significant step up and has many implications.

One major difference in the technology is the higher bandwidth will require higher frequency (millimeter wave band) which requires smaller and more frequent antenna placement and has a signal which is more easily disrupted. 4G signals can travel 10 miles or more from the tower; 5G cells are much smaller, measured in hundreds of feet, so many more transmitter sites will be needed, though they will be significantly smaller and can be located anywhere, even on a telephone pole. In a big win for the carriers (and for 5G fans, but not for local authorities), the FCC voted on March 22nd to not require local historical and environmental assessment reviews to help speed this process, clearing the road for deployment.

CRYSTAL BALL TIME

5G wireless technology is likely to impact the telecommunications industry in many ways – but will also have an impact on how we produce and distribute television:

1. Faster Mobile FTP – Okay, so this one is simple. If you’ve ever been on the road with a crew who needed to shoot and send back raw materials or edited pieces to the station from a Starbucks WIFI, you know that it can take a while. It would not be today’s primary method for delivering a late-breaking news story. After 5G rolls out, tethering a phone will be become our primary method for non-live backhaul.
   
   
2. Unbonded Cellular – The days of bonding three or more 4G LTE modems together to get the required bandwidth to deliver high quality are nearing their end. 5G will permit a single modem to do the work, reducing the size of the devices as well as minimizing the encoding latency. By the way, today’s modems are incompatible with 5G so if you are buying cellular bonding equipment now, you’d better plan on a shorter amortization cycle or find equipment that features a replaceable modem. Modems will be built directly into cameras – oh yeah, we’ve got that already, they’re called cell-phones!
   
   
3. 16K Facetime – Speaking of cellular phones, they already have very high-resolution cameras and superfast processors. With 5G, the quality of our Skype calls with grandma may soon be better than today’s professional cameras and transmission systems. Smartphones are light, inexpensive and pervasive – equip them with a zoom lens (available for under $100) or simply ask your audience to shoot material for you. I am betting this will become the primary method of live newsgathering. (Don’t believe smartphones are good enough? Steven Soderbergh begs to differ.)
   
   
4. REMI2 via Internet - There’s been a lot of buzz about producing sports remotely from a home-base located control room via REMI (REMote Integration). Imagine covering a concert or sporting event with five fixed position smartphones all live into the control room at the station or production center. Electronic cropping of the super-high-resolution video (check out Sony Hawkeye or MEVO for the concept) would provide panning and zooming. Almost zero cost for coverage.
   
   
5. Cable Overlay – There are reasons why AT&T is bundling video with your cell subscription, why they are attempting to buy Time Warner, and why Verizon stopped rolling out its FiOS service to homes, but is expanding fiber to the telephone poles. Once deployed to an area, 5G provides AT&T, Verizon, and to a lesser extent T-Mobile/Sprint, with a potential nationwide cable network without having to pull cables into the home. Bet on the current MSOs to up the bandwidth of their cable-modems and transition their video offerings to IP to stay relevant. Oh, by the way, did I say QAM is dead? (actually, I did!)

TIMING – A DOSE OF REALITY

None of these things happen overnight and naysayers have valid points about the near-term prospects. Sprint released the first WiMAX (LTE) smartphone in the US in June of 2010, and even after eight years this month, LTE is only rolled out to 86.5 percent of the U.S. market. It takes a long time and a lot of money to build out all those towers, even if they are easier to install thanks to the FCC.

Verizon has announced 5G rollouts to fixed locations in five cities this year including Sacramento and Los Angeles. AT&T will launch in 12 cities with mobile coverage likely to be delivered through hot-spots. The first consumer 5G smartphones should start rolling out after Mobile World Congress in February 2019.

Another date to watch is the FCC’s first spectrum auction for 5G scheduled to begin in November. Enthusiasm among participants will indicate interest and the level of competition we can expect going forward. It may also set the stage for new, unexpected players to emerge.

SUMMARY

5G is likely to enter our lives before this time next year and begin to have significant implications for our business. Now is the right time for broadcasters to start assessing their preparations, evaluating their impending purchases and workflows with an eye toward the 5G future.

Larry Thaler is the President of Positive Flux, a consulting firm that specializes in helping media companies take advantage of the rapid changes occurring in the industry. He can be reached viaTV Technology.

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—Ten years ago, I worked for Sprint Nextel as an engineer on the 2 GHz relocation project (aka the “BAS Relocation”). At that time, broadcasters didn’t have much choice to get signals from remote feeds back to the studio: It was either ENG microwave or satellite trucks.

I stayed with the project until 2010, and although a couple of alternatives were percolating in the background, it wasn’t until a year or two later that they exploded into the minds of broadcasters. It first hit the streets in the form of backpack cellular radios that used multiple 3G cell phone connections to transport signals back to the studio.

A Sky Italia crew uses a Comrex LiveShot system just before Election Day 2016 from Times Square in New York. As telcos such as AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile acquired more spectrum and implemented 4G technology, digital bandwidth that could be used for broadcast-quality video increased rapidly. With two 4G connections paired at the camera, it’s perfectly reasonable to get a transmission channel of 20 Mbps or greater—easily enough for a high-quality link, especially when using H.264 encoding.

Compared to microwave trucks (virtually all of which had been upgraded to digital as a result of the 2 GHz relocation project), bonded cellular has a big advantage: It has high-bandwidth return capability for cuing and IFB built into the system. The big disadvantage of bonded cellular is that the digital link can vary widely from lousy to great—you might be sure you’ll get 20 Mbps, but find out that it won’t go higher than 3 Mbps. As telcos continue to improve their systems and build additional 4G sites, getting higher speeds in the future is almost certain.

Although current 4G technology would seem perfect for occasional broadcast remotes, a 5G standard is in development. It promises to have more efficient spectrum usage and to serve more users with faster data speeds from each cell site.

“We’re really excited to see the rollout of the fifth generation wireless technologies because we’ve been closely involved since the days of 2G and it is amazing to see the bandwidth and technology advancements,” said Avi Cohen, COO and cofounder of Hackensack, N.J.-based LiveU. “But it’s important to remember that these are built for consumers and we are optimizing these networks for professional video applications. We’ve heard this same story through the years—that 3G is going to be fast enough, LTE is going to give us plenty of speed for video, and so on. But as cellular networks get better, the demand for more bandwidth and reliability continues to grow because we keep filling the capacity.”

REDUCED SIZE

As the demand for bandwidth has gone up, the pressure to reduce the size of the cellular encoder/radio has increased as well. LiveU’s LU200 series of cameramount encoders is small, but Cohen sees the future as smaller still.

“In more recent years, the need to be even more agile has meant increasing movement towards the device in your pocket; the iPhone, Galaxy or Pixel likely has the best camera you’ve ever owned and can get you more places than a traditional ENG camera,” Cohen said. “This could be the direction that you may see ENG continue to head, and in that regard we’re ready with our LiveU Smart App that enables the user to bond Wi-fi and cellular, and stream directly from the phone’s camera to the receive server, just the way the rest of the LU backpacks do.”

Most bonded cellular products today rely on H.264 encoding, which is well established and efficient. However, the next generation of television encoding—HEVC/H.265—is more efficient and therefore requires less bandwidth for the same quality of delivered video. What does that mean for bonded cellular systems?

“We’ve been keenly following the developments in the world of HEVC/H.265 encoders, and we find the offerings to be wanting,” said Chris Crump, senior director of sales and marketing for Comrex in Devens, Mass. “Although the H.265 spec offers some great technological promise, we’ve found that the currently available encoders are still inferior to the encoding capability of our H.264 encoder/decoder. As we’ve been telling our customers for some time now, we don’t want to add HEVC because it’s the ‘next big thing.’ We’ve got our ear to the ground, though, waiting for the right horse to show up.”

NOT A SURE THING

Anyone with a cellphone knows that a good connection is not always a sure thing, so manufacturers like Ontario, Canada-based Dejero created the Live+ Booster to work around that reality. Live+ Booster is a vehicle-mounted unit with an array of up to 12 high-gain antennas to improve performance. Paired with Dejero’s Live+ Go- Box or 20/20 transmitter, the Live+ Booster is an alternative to satellite or microwave systems that may be blocked by weather or line-of-sight obstructions.

JVC ProHD Bridge is a family of products for ENG links. JVC recently launched a vehicle-mounted system that incorporates diversity antennas to establish a high-reliability channel with bonded cellular. The ProHD Bridge puts the H.264 encoder in the camera, then has a 5 GHz camera-mount transmitter to relay the signal to the vehicle, which then sends the signal off to the studio.

An interesting twist in JVC’s system is that it can also provide a wide-ranging Wi-fi hotspot that can be used for any Internet-based application. ProHD Bridge consists of several products that can be mixed and added as needed.

Irvine, Calif.-based VidOvation’s DMNG PRO180 bonded cellular transmission system can support eight telco modems, has an internal high-efficiency custom antenna array and built-in Wi-fi modem, and features two H.264 video encoders for failsafe operation. The system has been getting lots of production use lately on the A&E series “Live PD.”

Consumer 4K displays have been flying off the shelf this year, and both 4K and high dynamic range have been widely discussed and demo-ed in the industry. Bonded cellular manufacturers have been keeping a close eye on these trends.

“If there is a demand for it now, we can certainly deliver such product very quickly,” said Paul Shen, CEO of TVU Networks in Mountain View, Calif. “There is sufficient bandwidth and stability with TVU mobile uplink solutions to support 4K and HDR video, and the processing power is also there to process those signals.”

What’s in a Name?

The cellular industry—in the form of the big telcos—is not a great friend of broadcasters. For decades, broadcasters controlled a huge swath of spectrum that turned out to be ideal for telcos to press into cellphone service—lobbying, advertising and probably some old-fashioned arm twisting was involved in forcing broadcasters off that spectrum. To be fair, the telcos did pay a lot of money for it, but much of that money went to Uncle Sam and not the broadcasters.

There are several books that could be written about this, but the point is that some broadcasters grumble at the use of products and services that are sold under the name “bonded cellular,” since cellular has been... well, “the enemy.” A few people in this industry probably want to avoid the use of the word “cellular,” and certainly don’t want to be seen bonding with it.

So if it’s not “bonded cellular,” what do we call it? A couple suggestions could be “IP ENG” and “License-Free Remote.” I like the term “Pocket Remote,” since the time is probably not far off when a respectable news remote could be done with a single cellphone.

And “bonded” is quickly becoming passé, as wireless network speeds ramp up. 4G wireless networks are now common, and they theoretically have speeds as high as 100 Mbps. In practice, I routinely get 4G speeds of 15–20 Mbps at my home and once scored 42 Mbps on the road (in Seattle). With the advent of 5G, which promises greater spectral efficiency than 4G and theoretical wireless speeds up to 1 Gbps, the need for bonding multiple channels for a single feed evaporates. (There is no current deployment of 5G, but much work is being done on a standard.)

Even 15 Mbps with H.264 encoding results in a pretty good HD signal back at the studio, and some video industry manufacturers are building gear to make such bandwidth as reliable as possible.

So if it isn’t “bonded cellular,” it certainly won’t be simply “cellular.” My two favorites are “IP ENG” and “Pocket Remote.”

What are yours? Drop us a line at tvtech@nbmedia.com.

Bob Kovacs

THE END OF TRUCKS?

What will become of the thousands of microwave remote trucks operated by broadcasters across the country? Do bonded cellular systems do everything a microwave truck can do, without the need to get an FCC license for microwave operations?

Not exactly.

“Microwave has its niche where cellular coverage has not been deployed or in rare situations of a severely congested environment—although those situations are becoming less common, as the cellular infrastructure continues to improve,” Shen said. “On the other hand, TVU mobile uplink solutions are capable of using cellular, microwave and satellite simultaneously. You can consider that TVU mobile uplink solution is the superset of all those technologies.

“I would be surprised to see anyone today deploying any specific technology without considering leveraging all different transmission mediums, simultaneously. One example is the World Ski Championship in 2015. It had very good cellular coverage throughout the ski slope, except at the very top of the mountain. So, TVU deployed a MIMO-microwave site on top of the mountain. TVU transmitters with integrated MIMO modules continuously delivered full HD-quality live video, while the camera crew skied down from top of the mountain.”

Bonded cellular, a product category that had not yet been invented 10 years ago and had just a handful of customers five years ago, is now a major path for broadcast remotes. Broadcasters have a wary relationship with telco companies (see the sidebar), but reliable remote connections using bonded cellular products could change some attitudes among broadcasters.

As more cell sites are rolled out and broadcaster-friendly bandwidth becomes more available and reliable, routine ENG remotes will increasingly move to bonded cellular links. After all, what once needed a truck will now almost fit in a couple of pockets.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF.—TVU Networks has announced a new service that it says will transmit live video at a minimum speed of 2Mbps over cellular networks from anywhere as long as there is a cell connection. This service, TVU Cellular Assurance Network (CAN), is integrated with TVU’s Inverse StatMux Plus (IS+) algorithm and requires no additional hardware.

IS+ allows TVU transmitters to simultaneously aggregate bandwidth mediums, including cellular 3G/4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Ka-band, Ka-band satellite, microwave, microwave mesh and BGAN, to deliver a broadcast image with sub-second latency.

The live IP video technology provider has also announced that it will make the TVU CAN service available for broadcasters covering the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. In addition, TVU plans to offer remote and on-location equipment, service and support at both conventions.