The FCC has outlined a plan for the US to have a ‘Broadcast Internet’, using ATSC 3.0, the next generation broadcast TV signalling standard, to support not just home broadband, but as a complement to 5G.
Brendan Carr, one of the FCC commissioners, said the agency would vote next month on the plan he is spearheading.
There are two clear potential impacts if the plan succeeds – to improve the business case for broadcasters to deploy the new technology from late 2020, because it would support a wider variety of services and revenues; and to augment 5G and fixed broadband technologies where either falls short in terms of coverage, affordability or reliability.
The standard has already been touted as enabling a range of new capabilities to enhance the broadcast model, which is heavily challenged by over-the-top and cellular alternatives. It could, for instance, support immersive video and audio, interactive TV, micro-targeted advertising and new pay-TV options.
But Carr also believes ATSC 3.0 can deliver data at 25Mbps speeds over very large areas because of the low frequency spectrum in which broadcasters operate. That could augment coverage for 5G, or offload some data from cellular networks, while also helping to achieve the coverage needed for “autonomous vehicles, IoT, smart ag and telemedicine, among other applications”, he said.
He added, in an online keynote speech to the virtual NAB conference last week: “And for many Americans, this means that they could soon have another option for high speed downloads – from movies to applications – delivered over the same spectrum that they’ve long used for over-the-air television.”
The broadcast and cellular worlds have long been converging. For instance:
- Over-the-top video downloads and streaming increasingly take place on mobile networks
- Broadcasters and pay-TV companies have launched mobile platforms in some markets
- The two worlds have clashed over the same spectrum in sub-GHz bands as 4G and 5G have sought better coverage, as enabled by those low frequencies
- LTE and 5G have their own broadcasting standards, such as eMBMS, giving rise to speculation that, one day, a single network would support both models.
The last of these outcomes would be a step nearer if Carr’s vision of the Broadcast Internet complementing 5G were to prove commercially appealing to operators too. To make it happen, the FCC’s role is to “remove the overhang of legacy media regulations”.
In June, the agency will vote on declaratory Ruling and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to do just that. It aims to ensure that Broadcast Internet services are not limited by anachronistic rules. In particular, it aims to clarify that the FCC’s broadcast TV station ownership rules do not apply to leasing arrangements between broadcasters and third parties for the provision of Broadcast Internet services.
“We are entering this new era of converged competition,” Carr said. “I think it makes sense to clear the way and let broadcasters enter that space either on their own, should they choose that, or voluntarily if they decide to lease this to other providers.”
Broadcast Internet would provide a welcome boost for ATSC 3.0, which – even before the pandemic – looked likely to fall short of its target of reaching 40 markets this year.
But while Carr’s concept is very logical, from a technical and regulatory standpoint, delivering broadcast Internet over ATSC 3.0 will be a minefield. Internet services based on ATSC 3.0, which benefits from an IP backbone while ATSC 1.0 does not, would function on the technology’s one-to-many architecture, compared to the one-to-one architecture of cellular networks.
That will require the alliances with 5G that Carr envisages to become real. There are examples. In January, Sinclair Broadcast announced a plan with SK Telecom, to establish a 5G-ATSC 3.0 testbed in Jeju Technopark in Korea, involving the translation of 5G-ATSC 3.0 services to Sinclair’s television station (WJLA) located in Washington DC. At the time, we said the tie-up had the potential to be the greatest catalyst to the commercial deployment of ATSC 3.0 services since the FCC began allowing over-the-air broadcasters to roll out ATSC 3.0 service updates more than two years ago. T
Of course, people will point to past attempts like LTE-Broadcast, based on MBMS, which flopped in the TV market, although the FeMBMS (further evolved MBMS) mode has some momentum as it combines well with the High Power High Tower (HPHT) model to deliver content cost-effectively across large coverage areas up to 60 square kilometers.
In terms of mobile devices, though, not much has progressed since One Media 3.0, Sinclair Broadcast’s dedicated next-gen platform development arm, revealed silicon at the Consumer Electronics Show 2019, designed to accelerate the adoption of ATSC 3.0 across markets with direct-to-mobile TV capabilities and broadcast/broadband convergence systems.
The FCC is seeking comment on two other aspects – the potential uses and applications of excess broadcast spectrum capacity resulting from the transition to ATSC 3.0; and whether the amount and method of calculating the ancillary services fee should be reconsidered, given the new potential uses of excess spectrum capacity.
Just a couple of months ago, the FCC adopted a proposed rulemaking for technical changes for the hybrid standard, relating specifically to distributed transmission systems (DTS). NAB and America’s public television stations petitioned the FCC to change these decade-old rules, and the Commission is seeking comment on how to facilitate DTS signals to spill over beyond a station’s authorized service area by more than the minimal amount currently allowed. Current DTS rules are too limited to allow for sufficient coverage, as such systems require multiple transmitters spread throughout a broadcaster’s footprint, as opposed to one big transmitter.