A lot has happened in the seven months since Conrad Clemson took the reins at EdgeBeam Wireless, the startup joint-venture company of E.W. Scripps, Gray Media, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair focused on monetizing ATSC 3.0-based datacasting. But few would know it—at least until now.
Since mid-June, the company’s CEO has quietly assembled key members of his executive team, including Chief Technology Officer Joe Fabiano, who helped drive development and international recognition of the ATSC 3.0 standard, and other names, perhaps less familiar to the television industry but equally experienced in their fields.
Last month, EdgeBeam went public with these and other key behind-the-scenes developments. Perhaps the most significant of all is that EdgeBeam has nailed down its first customer, Digital Mapping Group (DMG), a reseller of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) tools to utilities, governments and others requiring precise location services. DMG will resell EdgeBeam’s BMD-1000 dual-band, ATSC 3.0-cellular receiver as well as its data delivery services with sales to end users beginning in the first quarter of 2026.
At CES 2026 this month, the company is collaborating with Bosch, which is showcasing one of its concept cars showing a number of ATSC 3-based capabilities, like precision navigation, over-the-air updates and the ability to receive live video.
Also at the show, EdgeBeam is offering demos on its partnerships with RYARC for digital signage and Dejero for emergency communications as well as offering private demos of its software platform.
In the following interview, Clemson discusses the significance of the DMG deal and offers details on when he expects to announce other new EdgeBeam customers, and his determination to succeed with the company’s 3.0-based datacasting service regardless of how an ATSC 1.0 sunset plays out.
(An edited transcript.)
TVTech: EdgeBeam Wireless has recently announced two important steps: Digital Mapping Group as the service’s flagship customer and reseller and the company’s expanded leadership team. Let’s start with DMG. It delivers Global Navigation Satellite System solutions to utilities, governments and other entities. What is EdgeBeam’s role?
Conrad Clemson: If you are a golfer, you might be familiar with those watches that tell you how far you are from the hole. Every now and again, you’re standing on the golf course, and it says you’re 100 yards from the hole. You look and say: “I’m not 100 yards from the hole. What’s wrong with this thing?” Well, it turns out there are a lot of reasons why GPS is inaccurate.
Those wicked, fancy cesium clocks, they drift a little bit. Satellites move. The ionosphere can deflect signals. You put it all together, you can have a 5- or even a 10-meter error bar around your location. If we’re just playing golf, that’s fine. But if you’re building a building or flying a drone down a street in a city, it’s really important that you’ve got accurate GPS information.
There is a standard out there called RTK [Real Time Kinematic], which provides a stream of GPS correction. Our offering sources those GPS corrections and transmits them over our ATSC 3 network.
What’s really cool about that is we now have a dual-band receiver that receives that signal either over our ATSC 3 band or also transmitted over our MDN [Mobile Directory Number] cellular network. This allows our customers to have a very precise location with this dual-band capability where they can, generally speaking, take advantage of the broadcast nature and the high efficiency of ATSC 3, with the ability to be backed up on cellular.
We think that’s a very cool solution. It provides some real differentiation for our dealer network that we’re building out [with organizations] like the DMG guys.
TVT: When will DMG roll out this RTK service?
CC: We are expecting it in the first half of 2026 and possibly in the first quarter.
TVT: Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. in South Korea has been offering Real-Time Kinematic accuracy, leveraging cellular and 3.0, for a few years. Is the DMG-EdgeBeam deployment similar? I think Sinclair may have been involved with MBC’s RTK at some point. Is that correct?
CC: MBC has been a strong partner for EdgeBeam and EdgeBeam’s predecessor company, BitPath, for years. Certainly, the initial introductions were done through Sinclair. There is a relationship there.
MBC as a company has done a lot of work in this space in conjunction with a number of initiatives in Korea, and they really are our technology partner here in the U.S. to get this capability up and out into the marketplace.
We’re excited to work with them. They’ve been terrific partners—very high-quality, very quick and super to work with and they have great technical depth.
We think we’ve got a plan to grow our top line as quickly as we can create the demand. We are full-steam ahead on that front, and nothing, nothing, is going to get in the way of that for us.”
Conrad Clemson, EdgeBeam Wireless
TVT: DMG will be reselling EdgeBeam’s BMD-1000 dual-band RTK receiver as well as, obviously, EdgeBeam data delivery. Do you have any sense of whether the ultimate end user—DMG’s customers—will even care how the RTK service data is transmitted?
CC: No, they just want it to work. What we’re doing is taking something that already exists and making it better and more economical. It is our belief that there are a lot of really interesting opportunities in the positioning space, and what you’re seeing us do is take steps into this space. We’ve gotten very good feedback from the high-precision market.
This is a great first step for us, and I think you’ll see an expanding EdgeBeam presence in what I would describe as RTK-based precision navigation opportunities. Our expectation is we will have a real opportunity to expand this.
TVT: Tell us a bit more about the EdgeBeam BMD-1000 receiver.
CC: It’s a dual-band receiver, and we’ll talk more about this as we come out and start to announce our broader solutions. But the idea is to bring together and marry both the cellular connection and an ATSC 3 connection to allow us to come out as a hybrid network operator. We think this is a really unique and encompassing strategy that we can deploy into the marketplace.
TVT: What does having the inaugural customer for nationwide RTK service mean more broadly for one-to-many 3.0-based datacasting and its appeal in other applications?
CC: Since I got here, everybody’s been saying: “Wow, this is really, really great. But when is it real? When can customers really start deploying?” The answer is now. This is a very critical milestone. We’re really crossing the chasm of pre-revenue to revenue. This is where we can come out and say: “We’re actually putting live commercial traffic onto an ATSC 3.0 network from a paying customer.” That’s a milestone you only cross once. We’re really excited about it, and DMG is a great partner to make that entry.
TVT: It seems that part of the equation for how much EdgeBeam can grow must be tied to how much 3.0 spectrum is available for datacasting. The FCC looks to be leaning toward allowing broadcasters to decide when to shut off ATSC 1.0 rather than mandating a certain date. How will that affect EdgeBeam’s success?
CC: We think we’ve got a plan to grow our top line as quickly as we can create the demand. We are full-steam ahead on that front, and nothing, nothing, is going to get in the way of that for us.
When it comes to what would we like to see out there? Look, we’d like to see a firm sunset date on 1.0. That’s certainly in our best interest.
If you’ve got a good prediction as to what’s going to happen next in Washington, let me know. I’ll place a bet on one of those future predictors out there. But honestly, I don’t know how that’s going to play out. We’re going to be successful either way.
We’re certainly hopeful that the FCC will recognize that enabling and empowering companies like EdgeBeam to do really innovative things around spectrum is something that’s in the best interest of the public, of the government and quite frankly of our country.
TVT: When do you expect to announce other new customers?
CC: You’ll hear about more customers—plural—in the first quarter.
