[opendtv] New development in broadcast TV to handheld devices
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:30:42 -0400
How interesting.
It turns out that DVB-H is not making it, as a mobile broadcast DTV
standard, for precisely the same reasons that some are skeptical about
ATSC M/H chances of success. Which is, the 3G operators don't see a
benefit to themselves, so they are not commissioning the handset
manufacturers to build the function into the handsets they offer with
their service.
I thought that the Europeans were more immune to such shenanigans, but
evidently not. Looks like mobile TV uptake is even smaller in Europe
than it is here. Like, 4 percent.
So Integrated Mobile Broadcast (IMB) is a brand new TV broadcast
standard that is (a) legitimately cellular and (b) uses wideband CDMA,
just like all 3G cellular.
Which means, this would allow the 3G operators to offload TV bandwidth
hogs from their unicast channels, but at the same time, NOT give this
(they hope) lucrative function to someone else, like TV broadcasters.
The broadcast channels come from 5 MHz slices of spectrum the 3G
operators already have, but are not using yet.
This is a semi-useful white paper.
http://www.gsmworld.com/documents/GSMA_IMB_WP_final.doc
There's some "oh by the way" comment that they could migrate the same
function to LTE.
And here is the article that just came out with this interesting news.
I've been wondering what in the world is happening in this field for a
long time. There are other similar articles on IMB on the web, all brand
new.
Bert
--------------------------------------
http://www.rethink-wireless.com/?article_id=1883
IMB gets GSMA backing for cellular TV push
By CAROLINE GABRIEL
Published: 10 September, 2009
The GSM Association has endorsed the little known standard IMB
(Integrated Mobile Broadcast), which provides a next step for mobile TV
delivered over cellular networks, after the largely failed MBMS.
This comes with a big 'I told you so' from IPWireless, which has been
pushing the idea for a few years now that the 5MHz of unpaired TDD
spectrum, issued in many 3G auctions, could be used to offer a high
quality broadcast TV service on handsets, and free up huge amounts of 3G
network capacity currently used by unicast TV services.
IMB is now part of the 3GPP Release 8 standard. It is thought to have
enough capacity to offer 20 TV channels in a single 5MHz TDD slice of
spectrum, multiplexed down to 256K per channel, and still giving
excellent quality. The signal could be delivered across an entire 3G
footprint (with the addition of a number of extra transmitters) without
any burden being placed on the cellular network.
Issues that previously limited uptake of IMB, or IPWireless' tdTV
system, have now all been addressed. Namely, the standard now allows for
smooth handover between IMB and unicast delivery; has the potential to
be integrated onto a single W-CDMA chip rather than requiring a separate
chip; and has resolved interference issues with FDD W-CDMA, at least for
spectrum in the 1900MHz to 1910MHz range.
IP Wireless already had a trial at Orange and T-Mobile in the UK (which
have just agreed to merge), but in that pilot each 5MHz segment only
gave rise to 14 TV channels per operator. The new standard could support
40 separate TV channels if two operators shared their TDD spectrum.
The GSMA announced its support and is backed up with additional support
from both IPWireless and Ericsson as well as operators Orange, Softbank
and Telstra.
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