Building the case for Direct to Mobile using 3GPP 5G Broadcast

New business models have to emerge between public broadcaster, TSPs and OTT players

India is now at the cusp of a broadcast digitization. With the Govt. of India also considering citizen centric services targeting mobile phones, the public broadcaster Doordarshan can now look to a new lease of life. With high level discussions now taking place within the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) and its sister organizations including Prasar Bharati and Doordarshan, it is imperative that the policy makers make note of global developments on this front.

Doordarshan has, multiple times in the past, been making efforts to move up the technology path towards broadcasting modernization. However, the lengthy bureaucratic processes and possibly some bad commercial planning, such modernization and adoption of new technologies did not gain traction. This in fact caused substantive subscriber erosion and revenue losses over time. The latest shut down of its DVB (digital video broadcasting) services (which was supposed to digitize the use-cases) for lack of an ecosystem is a case in point.

Essential ingredients for a success story in broadcasting is to focus on the digital content delivery and of the development of a device ecosystem. This needs immediate attention of the decision makers in MIB, else their renewed efforts would lead to further loss to the exchequer and time, with the risk of consumers waiting for a world class broadcast service migrate into choosing other options. To avoid history repeating itself, MIB and Prasar Bharti need to undertake an end-to-end cost-benefit analysis of the entire planning, while ensuring that natural resources are utilized optimally for providing quality public services. Three unknowns need to be accounted for in this planning analysis: the broadcast radio network that includes the core network, monetization of the spectrum resources and the end-user device ecosystem.

The broadcast network with technologies to reach mobile devices will be a transformative change for the public broadcaster (moving from analog to current generation digital), but probably the one with lowest priority in the whole migration. Digitization comes with its own baggage of challenges. The traditional model of employing High-Power High-Tower (HPHT) transmitters for roof top reception needs a review taking into account the Low-Power Low-Tower (LPLT) transmitters. Secondly, the broadcaster may need to seamlessly integrate into their 3GPP based cellular core network of TSPs for offering advance services including off-load, authentication, security, and session maintenance, etc.

The second unknown is the license to operate a broadcast service in the broadcast spectrum. New business models have to emerge between public broadcaster, TSPs and OTT players keeping in mind the needs of the Indian consumer. The public broadcaster has prior experience sharing spectrum to private players (FM licenses) and a similar licensing model should be explored for offering Broadcast services. This is going to be a win-win scenario for multiple players in the ecosystem.

The broadcaster will earn revenue by licensing spectrum and leasing airtime in the HPHT transmitters, the cellular operator and OTT players may use this model as an additional opportunity to reach new subscribers which is currently not addressed in the DTH or OTT models. For a cellular operator, this is also an efficient means to offload live OTT content. This model is very elegant to scale in which the administration can leverage it to offer citizen centric services (e.g., schools, agriculture, public disaster broadcasting, etc.) by becoming or partnering with another DCO.

The third and final unknown (but the challenging of the three) is the ability to reach end-user devices. Ironically, this is often overlooked in the planning. India is complicated for several reasons, i) it is an open market i.e. an operator is not able to decide what functionality can get into a device, ii) it is a cost sensitive market i.e. competition forces OEMs to trim down on new functionalities to be added. The story of broadcasting digital content to mobile phones for India will likely succeed only when the technology is integrated into “open market” end-user devices without impacting the cost. And for that to happen India needs to focus and invest on globally harmonized standards and technology that has a high success of getting into mobile phones.

The license to operate a broadcast service in the broadcast spectrum will have to take into account new business models that are emerging – keeping in mind the players which are now public broadcaster, TSPs and OTT.

The 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) Evolved Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (eMBMS) has been built upon LTE with as minimal change as possible to the existing structure. 3GPP has specified LTE-based 5G broadcast (since Rel-16 and ongoing standardization in Rel-17) and NR MBS (ongoing standardization in Rel-17) with minimum additions, possibly limited to software updates. Both these 3GPP family of technologies aim to address audiovisual needs of citizens.

•             LTE-based 5G broadcast address high-tower/high-power deployments, requiring specific band (470-694/698 MHz or parts thereof) and can also work in the existing channel bandwidths of 6, 7 and 8 MHz (Rel-17).

•             NR MBS can be deployed, in existing 3GPP mobile bands and Rel-17 networks that would enable not only general MBS services but also transparent IPv4/IPv6 multicast delivery.

3GPP undertook this work as the enabler of the delivery of services over multicast and/or broadcast connections, resulting in overall cost minimization and easy adoption by operators. With 3GPP Rel 14, eMBMS has been extended with Enhanced TV (enTV) features that enables TV broadcasters to deliver their services also over eMBMS.

These standards were first developed in the 3GPP through the active involvement of global broadcasters and then subsequently adopted into Indian national standards by the Telecom Engineering Center (TEC). Among the many enhancements to the system, highlights include greater radio broadcast range, free-to-air services, and transparent mode delivery of digital video signals.

These feature enhancements attracted global TV broadcasters to offer their services into mobile devices, to enable service continuity and greater coverage. Extended MBMS (xMB) interface is introduced between Broadcast/Multicast Service Center (BM-SC) and content provider. In transport-only mode delivery, content providers send application data to the 3GPP network, and the BM-SC simply forwards the data in a transparent fashion to the user device. In summary, the broadcasters now have a technology that reuses 3GPP silicon to offer broadcast content into mobile devices without increasing the bill of materials (BOM) for manufacturers and consumers, thereby capable of creating an ecosystem and allowing for its success.

Note: the author is a renowned ITU expert and together with IAFI is an advocate of globally harmonized technology adoption. With years of experience behind him, he can confidently advocate for technologies developed by the broadcasters in 3GPP and adopted by ITU into the M.2150 recommendation. The 3GPP ecosystem of vendors and devices OEM is rich enough for commoditizing the technology in a shorter time that would further allow the broadcasters from all the ITU nations to further leverage and adopt into respective national standards. Since India has already adopted these technologies into national standards, it also has a first mover advantage to create a local ecosystem using this technology.

Bharat Bhatia is the President of the ITU-APT Foundation of India (IAFI) and Vice Chairman of the World Wireless Research Forum (WWRF) for Asia Pacific Region. He has worked as a spectrum regulator in India and as the international head of spectrum team of Motorola solutions

Bharat B. Bhatia

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