While U.S. television broadcasters await a Federal Communications Commission rulemaking on the completion of the transition from DTV to NextGen TV, the organization responsible for ATSC 3.0 has been hard at work on ways to maximize the standard’s grasp.
Case in point is 5G Broadcast. While some broadcasters, particularly a group of LPTV stations, have expressed support for 5G Broadcast, an ATSC technical group has been working to develop technical guidance on how ATSC 3.0 broadcasters can interleave 5G Broadcast waveforms in their 3.0 over-the-air signal.
While the 3.0 standard was created with a bootstrap to enable this sort of thing, the latest work of the standards body advances this capability from theory to practical implementation, complete with testing to prove the real-world use case.
That work, along with other ATSC work on Broadcast-to-Everything (B2X) and a bridge architecture to enable some B2X use cases to be implemented with backward-compatible ATSC 3.0 extensions.
In this interview, Luiz Fausto, vice president of standards development at the Advanced Television Standards Committee, discusses these developments.
(An edited transcript.)
TV Tech: What was the thinking behind the proposal to ensure it’s possible to interleave 5G Broadcast with ATSC 3.0?
Luiz Fausto: ATSC 3.0 was designed from the outset to be flexible and extensible. Its physical layer implements basic mechanisms for coexistence and forward compatibility, enabling ATSC 3.0 transmissions to be discontinuous and, if/when needed, to share time on the same RF channel with other waveforms.
Until now, this feature had not been explored in depth in the field. Once this proposal was made by some ATSC members, the capability was readily available and no normative changes to ATSC 3.0 were required.
Instead, our experts tested this interleaving approach and produced detailed documentation to provide clear guidance on implementing it in a practical, receiver-aware manner. This information was included in an amendment to ATSC Recommended Practice A/327, which provides guidelines for the ATSC 3.0 physical layer protocol. This amendment is currently under membership ballot and is expected to be published soon.
TVT: Which technology group did the work? When did the work start? When will ATSC members vote on it?
LF: This work emerged from ATSC TG3 (Technology Group on ATSC 3.0) / S32 (Specialist Group on the Physical Layer). Discussions on this topic began in S32 in 2024 and progressed through testing, contributions and drafting into an amendment to ATSC Recommended Practice A/327.
Process-wise, the amendment has been approved in a TG3 ballot and is currently under an ATSC membership ballot through March 10. Upon approval in the membership ballot, it will be published.
TVT: Was there representation from the wireless community on the technical group? If so, who?
LF: Some ATSC members, including one deeply involved in the wireless community, proposed that ATSC test and, if necessary, clarifying the use of interleaving between ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast, and participated throughout the process.
Other participants also contributed through testing, review and discussion across the broader ATSC membership—consistent with ATSC’s multi-industry model, which includes organizations from broadcast, professional equipment, consumer electronics and semiconductors, among others.
ATSC 3.0 is a wireless system capable of delivering data to any number of receivers simultaneously under any specified conditions. Its IP-based transport, along with its flexibility and extensibility, makes it suitable for integrating with and complementing other wireless systems, such as those used in unicast telecommunications. At ATSC TG3/S32, we have the privilege of working with a great number of world-class wireless technology experts.
TVT: Can you please clarify whether this work is part of the work involved in enabling Broadcast-to-Everything (B2X)? Is the work on what’s is known as the bridge architecture involved, and is there a relationship between interleaving 5G Broadcast and the bridge architecture?
LF: The bridge architecture, which we call BR architecture, is under development in another specialist group, TG3/S44 (Specialist Group on Broadcast-to-Everything). This group is developing the new, nonbackward-compatible system (B2X), further optimized for broadcast/multicast applications beyond fixed television reception and for deeper integration with other IP networks, such as 3GPP networks.
Because introducing a nonbackward-compatible system is a long process and because ATSC 3.0 is already IP-based, flexible and extensible, some of the new use cases envisioned for B2X can be implemented to some extent with backward-compatible ATSC 3.0 extensions.
That is exactly what the bridge architecture provides. B2X and BR share the same Broadcast Core Network architecture. Although B2X and BR enable greater integration with IP networks in general and 3GPP systems in particular for B2X, they are not directly related to the LTE-based 5G Broadcast.
TVT: Does work like this promote harmony with 3GPP standards and protocols? If so, why is that relevant?
LF: Yes, both the time-domain channel sharing documented in S32 and the new developments in S44 contribute to integrating ATSC technologies with 3GPP technologies.
Network integration is a natural trend in the current evolution of technology. Wi-Fi, an IEEE standard, and 3GPP standards, such as 4G and 5G, have converged in many respects over time. Terrestrial and non-terrestrial mobile systems, specifically satellite, and technologies are also converging toward greater integration.
ATSC 3.0 was designed with technology convergence and integration as a guiding principle. Interleaving it with other technologies is an example of many integrations already possible. The ongoing work under S44 to develop the B2X system and the BR architecture, along with their shared Broadcast Core Network architecture, will take this path even further.
Different systems, technologies, and networks can complement each other, combining their strengths. Market demand often drives integration and convergence. Having technologies developed across multiple, separate standards developing organizations (SDOs) is not an obstacle to integration or convergence. Each SDO has its own field of expertise, which is necessary because there is no “one-size-fits-all” technology. As long as the technologies are based on publicly available standards, there are opportunities for integration and convergence.
This approach increasingly provides consumers with seamless connectivity, with devices using the best system, technology and network for each use case, while the underlying technical aspects remain largely transparent to the end user.
TVT: What are the takeaways for readers?
LF: One of the most important takeaways is the significant headroom built into ATSC 3.0 by design. ATSC 3.0’s physical layer and signaling were designed for extensibility and forward compatibility, enabling the industry to explore new operational models—such as time-domain sharing—without destabilizing the core standard.
At the same time, ATSC continues to innovate beyond today’s deployments, extending the value of ATSC technology to broader IP-centric and broadcast-to-everything use cases—while maintaining a deliberate roadmap that protects existing investments and enables future growth.
