Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary ONE Media 3.0, reached an agreement with India-based wireless systems developer Saankhya Labs, to develop networking technology combining 5G cellular networks with the NextGen TV ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard.
The platform can relieve mobile network congestion, say the companies, because it will enable 4G and 5G carriers to offload streamed and live content dynamically on to an over-the-air broadcast Digital Terrestrial Network (DTT) such as ATSC 3.0. Under the agreement, Saankhya Labs is developing an end-to-end cooperative network platform including radio nodes and mobile end user devices.
“Broadcasters have a critical seat at the 5G table. This work and product development will provide a ‘level set’ against expectations for broadcast services that are embraced by the 3GPP 5G standard,” said ONE Media 3.0 President Mark Aitken. The first deployments will elevate understanding of the cooperative role NextGen (ATSC 3.0) broadcast can play to make 5G networks highly efficient Broadcast/Broadband convergent networks, he explained.
The companies say the hybrid network would comprise numerous “firsts” in broadcast innovation:
- “Cellularizing” broadcast architecture to enable indoor reception of DTT with mobile and portable devices
- Dramatically improving DTT spectrum use, providing more bits/higher robustness through spectrum reuse
- Introducing Artificial Intelligence-based analytics to provision and offload traffic from congested 4G/5G networks
- Providing content delivery networks with significant streaming experience improvement by moving streamed traffic to the broadcast platform
- Enabling hyper-localization of broadcast content (video/audio services, datacasting, advertising, emergency alerts)
Saankhya Labs CEO Parag Naik said, “Broadcast video networks are essentially ‘constant quality’ networks compared to the current ‘best effort’ unicast mobile networks, especially for video delivery. Our Direct-to-Mobile solution provides a new tool combining broadcast and OTT content over a new video distribution platform. We are convinced that OTT content players and mobile network operators will take full advantage of this unique video delivery solution.”
July 25, 2019
Reader Interactions