Alcatel-Lucent, 3 Italia and Italian public service broadcaster RAI have joined forces in a wide ranging demonstration of the Alcatel designed DVB-SH (satellite handheld) mobile TV system in Italy. The system is a latecomer into the world of mobile TV, already over-serviced with around a dozen competing technologies, led in Europe by DVB-H.
The international significance of this trial is enormous, potentially providing a launching pad for the Alcatel variation of mobile TV technology, but also supporting the DVB-H software stack and offering a series of potential hybrids for any kind of terrain or country infrastructure. A success here could project the DVB technologies into an unassailable global position.
DVB-SH is similar in every respect, including the upper layers of handset software, to DVB-H. It uses an OFDM spectrum scheme, with the same modulation types, the same time and frequency interleaving, and a similar forward error correction protection, DVB IP Datacast structure and electronic service guide and digital rights management standards.
However it transmits in Europe in S-Band, or satellite band, which is available in Europe on a first-come, first served basis, in two 30 MHz slices, from 1980 MHZ to 2010 MHz and from 2170 MHz to 2200 MHz.
Just why the world’s most successful DVB-H operator, 3 Italia, would want to get involved with a different mobile TV standard is something of a mystery. It claims to have built out a nationwide network of DVB-H transmitter sites costing some $200 million, and it has been aggressively trying to recoup its up front investment with high pricing at up to €29 per month ($37), including handset subsidies, and has signed over 750,000 customers in around 18 months. Its rivals, Telecom Italia and Vodafone have eschewed subsidies and signed only 10,000 apiece using a network built by RAI rival Mediaset, controlled by the Italian ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his family.
But word throughout the mobile TV community has it that the in-building penetration of both networks in Italy leaves a lot to be desired. One problem has been that since each region of Italy has had to use slightly different frequencies, there are issues with how much power the network can use, especially out towards the edge of each major transmitter site. Too much power and it may interfere with neighboring transmitter cells.
Also although its network has taken in most urban centers, rural coverage has been patchy at best, and non-existent in some regions and Alcatel has always said that its satellite based technology can bring far better penetration than even DVB-H, for around 40% less cost. However Alcatel needs a proof of concept installation for Europe and this looks like it. Back in January we pointed out that Alcatel was in deep talks with 3 Italia.
This move can be interpreted as 3 Italia wanting to save money on completing its network in the rural communities, and it will be using the difficult late market entry position of Alcatel to leverage a virtually free trial.
Alcatel’s architecture proposes to use one third of the S-Band spectrum, in any given territory, from a satellite, and two thirds of it on the ground from terrestrial repeaters.
But the way it does this is to break this spectrum into 3 different channels and encode and deliver them differently. It plans to split up Europe into perhaps 3 or more zones (depending upon where it can get buy-in), with say the UK, France and Germany each having one 5 MHz channel encoded in QPSK at the satellite
So if we call these Signal 1 (S1) Signal 2 (S2) and Signal 3 (S3), this will mean that around 2.3 Mbps of signal will be delivered from the satellite, around 9 mobile TV channels.
In territory 1 (say the UK) there would be 9 channels from the satellite in S1 and the two other 5 MHz spectrum chunks would be delivered by terrestrial transmitters in each of the S2 and S3 spectrum. Since this is sent terrestrially it should not interfere with the satellite signals in neighboring regions.
This S2 and S3 spectrum might initially be modulated with QPSK but perhaps could be changed to the heavier payload associated with 16QAM, delivering around 4.6 Mbps for each signal, so 18 channels for each of S2 and S3, a total of 36 terrestrial channels to add to the 9 that come from the satellite.
In territories 2 and 3 the spectrum are revolved with a different clump of 5 MHz being used for the satellite transmission. In this way Alcatel says that it gets around European rules for the use of this spectrum for satellite services because SOME of all parts of the spectrum are being sent from a satellite. Alcatel has a commitment to use a satellite put up by SES Astra and Eutelsat in 2009, but because it PLANS to use this satellite, there is nothing to stop it using the terrestrial parts of this spectrum sooner, like immediately.
If this works, suddenly 3 Italia will have its own network, already capable of delivering 20 TV channels (it currently delivers 16), and due to be upgraded to 40 channels, plus the Alcatel capability, using half of the European S-Band could add a further 45 channels in Italy. If more of the S-Band spectrum were used this might be more like 90 additional TV channels.
The Europe wide satellite is being built by Alcatel Alenia Space Systems, a company that was, in the most part acquired by both Italian Finmecanica and France’s Thales last year, and the seeds of the mobile TV strategy must have already been sown, prior to Alcatel giving up control of the company.
The satellite will cost €130 million ($166 million) and means that Alcatel and partners will be able to offer services right across the European footprint from early 2009 using a 12 meter antenna, specifically targeting France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
The key point about the system is that this spectrum needs terrestrial antennas which are in exactly the same places as cellular 3G towers. That means it can re-use cellular sites and existing antennas. Handsets can be made super-sensitive to these signals using multiple internal antennas which Alcatel says gives it 6 dB of gain, and far better in-building reception than any other satellite based system such as the Chinese and Korean systems.
Alcatel has always seen this system having a number of hybrid applications with DVB-H, for instance it might use the same DibCom chip used in many DVB-H trials to demodulate the DVB-SH signal, in handsets that it is known to be co-developing with Samsung.
In order for DVB-SH to co-exist in a handset with DVB-H it would require more internal antennas and two radios, but perhaps only one tuner chip and application software could be identical. We would expect that this is a big part of the experiment, with a huge bouquet of TV channels, some repeated from the S-Band terrestrial repeaters, where DVB-H coverage is weak or non-existent.
If Alcatel can demonstrate its capability in Italy with 3 Italia it could also reach out to Vodafone and Telecom Italia and Mediaset about further co-operation, and make S-Band a genuine contender in Alcatel’s native France, and even more attractive in places like the UK, which has no available UHF spectrum, and which is unlikely to get any before the second half of 2009, and perhaps as late as 2012. Other less sophisticated parts of Europe, such as Eastern Europe might consider taking mobile TV with little or no base station investment and no spectrum costs, directly from a satellite.
Previously Alcatel has launched a trial in the Island of Jersey, and is in the middle of building out two cities in the USA with terrestrial repeaters where it is working with ICO Communication’s, a company controlled by Craig McCaw, which will have a satellite deployed during 2008.
This trial, like an earlier technical trial conducted in France, will use a helicopter to emulate the power of the satellite, but for the most part use the addition of about a $20,000 transmitter at 3 Italia base station sites in Torino in Italy.
From RAI’s point of view this is a way back into mobile TV. It initially held a trial with Vodafone using DVB-H until Vodafone was tempted away to use the Mediaset DVB-H service. After that RAI declared that it would experiment with T-DMB, using an existing Digital Audio Broadcast terrestrial radio multiplex, but this would have given it just a couple of channels, using entirely different technology and handsets.
The trial will be overseen by RAI Technological Strategies, Raiway SpA and RAI Research and Technology Innovation Centre, with cellular sites provided by 3 Italia for the entire town of Torino.
Alcatel-Lucent will provide the DVB-SH equipment, we assume free of charge, the network planning, the network integration and the technical support.
The first phase of this trial will take place from December 2007 to March 2008, and in the second phase of the trial, a broadcast signal from a satellite will be emulated by a transmitter located in a high-altitude helicopter.