It is over simplistic to regard President Obama’s appointment as head of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) of Tom Wheeler, a former lobbyist for the wireless industries, as being a blow for broadcasters in their campaign to preserve digital terrestrial spectrum. Afterall, further back from 1979 to 1984 Wheeler acted for the cable TV industry and is also as far as we can tell, above sectional interests and most likely set on reconciling the various camps. Certainly the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) gave no hint of any concern over the appointment in a positive statement welcoming Wheeler’s experience and temperament to serve the agency with distinction, and looking forward to working with him. Libertarian groups had more cause for alarm over the appointment on account of Wheeler’s apparent support for big business and the move was lamented by Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free press. Aaron did express the hope that Wheeler would confound his fears and stand up for consumer interests.
Nevertheless Wheeler’s strong support for Obama’s universal broadband coverage ambitions does suggest he will be in favour of further spectrum transfer from DTT to 4G/LTE. Wheeler is the former head of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, although since 2005 he has been a venture capitalist at Core Capital Partners. He replaces outgoing chairman Julius Genachowski.
Meanwhile the spectrum debate has become more heated in Europe where broadcasters feel equally threatened by the marauding cellular industry. This has strained relations between the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) and the European Commission (EC), especially after the Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) recommended handing over the 700 MHz band to cellular operators in order to increase 4G capacity. The RSPG was appointed by the EC and is not impartial on the matter according to the EBU, which has criticized the advice to mandate use of 700MHz spectrum by mobile services.
The EBU’s director general Ingrid Deltenre argues that DTT makes more efficient use of spectrum than mobile broadband for ‘continuous linear media distribution to large audiences.’ This means of course broadcasting or multicasting and Deltenre is quite correct, for not even a diehard cellular advocate would pretend unicast is efficient for mass media distribution. That is why mobile operators are all looking at multicast and broadcast now, with Wi-Fi increasingly featuring in the equation. It may then be asked why they need to pinch more spectrum for LTE from digital terrestrial operators, when this would merely provide a bit of headroom against proliferating mobile data and when small cell technologies allied to Wi-Fi offload are the answer, combined with radio multicasting.
There are a number of multicast schemes now on the table for 4G/LTE, one being MuVi (Multicast Video), which cleverly differentiates packets according to their importance for reconstructing video frames. It incorporates an efficient radio resource allocation algorithm to optimize the overall video quality across all users in a multicast group within a 4G cell, and also distributes the bulk of the processing load to the so called Access Service Network (ASN) gateways at the head of the backhaul network feeding the radio base stations, which themselves only require slight modifications. Client devices are completely untouched. Such solutions will also be deployed over Wi-Fi and will provide relief against data growth.
But the broadband lobby is getting stronger, while crucially in Germany there are signs of major broadcasters turning their back on DTT. Against this background the EC is expected to include provisions on spectrum in its proposals for a single market in telecommunications, to be submitted to EU leaders ahead of a European Council meeting in October 2013. EC vice-president Neelie Kroes has said she will also set up a group including representatives of the mobile and broadcasting industries to discuss radio spectrum from a political and technical perspective. This at least suggests all is not yet lost and has been welcomed by the EBU. So the next year looks like being critical for the future of DTT both in Europe and the US, with longer term hopes pinned on compromise with the cellular lobby and possibly spectrum convergence.