Both digital terrestrial and DTH (Direct To Home) satellite are converging with internet IP based transmission with an increasing emphasis on delivery to mobile devices. The principal DTT platforms are embracing IP and mobile delivery in different ways, while 5G Broadcast has emerged both as an alternative and complementary technology to each.

Unlike the DTT platforms though, 5G Broadcast has been developed by the 3GPP, which is responsible for cellular standards including 5G. Yet it has been pitched squarely at broadcasters and is designed to use 5G infrastructures for delivery of linear and live TV services direct to mobile devices, without any need for a SIM card or internet connection.

But then as if to confuse matters, the 3GPP has also developed standards for multicast transmission over 5G networks that do require SIMs as well as internet connections. These are embodied in the 5G Multicast–Broadcast Services (MBS) system introduced under 3GPP Release 17 in 2022, based on 5G Core and New Radio.

MBS allows a mobile network to select the most efficient or performant delivery mechanism out of point-to-multipoint (PTM) or point-to-point (PTP) delivery. This can save bandwidth over mobile backhaul networks by switching between these mechanisms on the basis of varying user demands for the relevant content in each cell.

MBS is pitched more at Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), although there is potential for it to be combined with 5G Broadcast across future hybrid national infrastructures. The main interest at present though from the TV side lies in emerging coexistence between 5G Broadcast and the new generation DTT platforms such as ATSC 3.0.

Both the platforms themselves, and individual regions or countries, are coming at this in slightly different ways, and certainly at varying rates. South Korea was first to adopt the North American ATSC 3.0 from 2017 before 5G Broadcast was in the frame. This was partly because having missed out on the second generation for various reasons, ATSC skipped straight from 1.0 to 3.0, coming out sooner and gaining some market edge as a result.

Brazil was the next notable scalp for ATSC 3.0 in 2023, being adopted in preference both to the next generation of the incumbent ISDB-I platform and 5G Broadcast itself. However, unlike the South Korean case, ATSC 3.0 was adopted just for the physical layer as part of Brazil’s own TV 3.0 platform. This was similar to how Brazil led development of ISDB-I as the international version of the Japanese ISDB standard around 2008, later to be adopted by some other South American countries, as well as one or two elsewhere.

The next generation that Brazil rejected for TV 3.0 is Advanced ISDB-I. However, Brazil is still likely to embrace 5G Broadcast at the service level so that linear TV can be delivered that way to mobile devices on the assumption future versions support the profile. There is certainly more interest among mobile device makers in implementing 5G Broadcast in anticipation of greater global adoption than say ATSC 3.0 with a more restricted market, given the incremental costs involved.

Indeed, this factor may govern India’s decision over next generation broadcasting. India adopted DVB-T in 1999 and followed up with the second-generation DVB-T2 in 2008, but has like Brazil with ISDB-I been considering a switch to ATSC 3.0. The idea met objections from leading mobile handset makers such as Samsung, which argued this would add around $30 to the cost of each device.

China is an interesting case because the country decided to go it alone in the early noughties to avoid dependence on the existing three main DTT options, which were then either under control of the USA, Japan or Europe. After various internal debates, DTMB emerged as a formal DTT standard in 2006 and was then adopted across China, as well as its two administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, along with a few countries closely aligned with China, mostly near neighbors such as Cambodia, Laos, and Pakistan.

China was then quick to develop what is roughly equivalent to ATSC 3.0 with DTMB Advanced (DTMB-A), which was accepted by the ITU as an international standard in July 2015. As well as bringing various technical improvements such as faster system synchronization and higher receiving sensitivity, this was optimized for mobile reception with the ability to sustain 24 Mbps to moving devices, compared with 38 Mbps for stationary ones.

China was also quick to recognize the desirability of alignment with the emerging 5G Broadcast standard. This culminated recently with China Mobile, by far the world’s largest telco as well as mobile operator, working with China Broadcast Network among others to combine DTMB-A’s physical layer with a 5G Core.

This will enable transmission over both broadcast and broadband networks. Some commentators suggest that China may coalesce around 5G Broadcast for linear TV, as well as to deliver streaming services at large scale.

The DVB has been taking a similar line for Europe, and those other countries that have adopted its standards, which includes Russia and nearly all African countries, even if some of those have yet even to migrate to DVB-T2. Unlike the other three global DTT platforms, there is no formal third generation DVB DTT standard. But the DVB Interactive (DVB-I) standard has been combined with the more recently introduced DVB Native IP (DVB-NIP) to provide the framework for broadband/broadcast convergence, increasingly allied to 5G Broadcast.

Indeed, the DVB Project, to give it the full name, has changed tack since DVB-I was first approved in November 2019. DVB-I was initially introduced on the premise that broadcasting would migrate to streaming networks and so the objective was to ensure that traditional linear TV service standards would at least be maintained and ideally improved over broadband networks, whether mobile or fixed. But it became clear that existing DTT infrastructure would be preserved and play an important role in distribution of TV services to both fixed and mobile devices. 

As a result, DVB-I is now presented as a new service layer designed to incorporate 3GPP 5G technologies into broadcast services. The DVB has cited various use cases like enhanced venue-casting and dynamic offloading of unicast networks to 5G Broadcast, as well public service alerts.

The DVB then is now going further, or at any rate faster, than its three DTT counterparts, in embracing not just 5G Broadcast, but also unicast and multicast transmission, within its standards. The pitch now is that by waiting this long it can go further than just combining broadband and broadcast by harnessing the power of 5G networks to reach mobile devices most cost effectively.

This consideration led to development of DVB-NIP as an extension to DVB-I, enabling OTT services to be delivered over existing DVB networks. DVB-I then allows such services to be discovered whether they are delivered over DVB broadcast networks, LTE-based 5G Broadcast, or streamed over conventional 5G mobile networks.

The DVB has taken care to include satellite in the equation with support for its DVB-S2 under DVB-NIP, as well as DVB-T2. This has been highlighted by the DVB Project’s Head of Technology Emily Dubs in various recent presentations, noting how in addition to embracing the two key DVB broadcast delivery technologies it provides a foundation for integration of 5G with DTH as well as DTT.

As Dubs noted, this will also help ensure continuity of service in remote areas of low connectivity. Already some LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite constellations are providing 5G connectivity in remote areas in tandem with terrestrial 5G services on the ground. The DVB move promises to extend that to emerging or future 5G Broadcast services.

Even more significant is the incorporation not just of 5G Broadcast but also the 3GPP’s standards for unicast and multicast transmission over 5G networks. Under the banner of 5G MBB, these require SIM cards, but are being implemented by mobile device makers as part of the natural cellular upgrade path.

The DVB’s view then is that as multicast becomes enshrined in 5G networks, media delivery will increasingly occur across a hybrid or converged landscape combining all available physical infrastructures. So, while 5G Broadcast has been presented as an alternative DTT platform, just better optimized for mobile devices, the DVB sees it as part of a wider hybrid media delivery platform that also incorporates streaming over mobile networks.

This makes sense in so far that streaming has already gained huge traction for reception of TV content, and many 5G networks seem to be coping so far with the additional traffic. 5G MBB has been promoted as a way of saving bandwidth over mobile backhaul networks by switching popular live or linear unicast streams to multicast, so that they are only transmitted as one instance to each mobile cell, and then unicast out to individual users at that stage. But while some MNOs have welcomed this development, others are happy with the status quo. Either way, it looks likely in the longer term that a lot of video content will continue to be delivered over mobile networks in streaming mode, whether that is unicast or multicast. 5G Broadcast then will have to dovetail with that.

There is also the issue of support for 5G Broadcast by the major device makers, notably Apple and Samsung. This will be required for 5G Broadcast to achieve its goal of unifying fixed broadcast and mobile transmission, and to date these major device makers have shown more interest in 5G MBB.

Yet there are indications that the growing force behind 5G Broadcast will lead to support from device makers being forthcoming, and that would really help it over the line as an integral part of next generation over the air TV. That cause has also been aided by release of the 5G Broadcaster received profile towards the end of 2024 by a European working group comprising members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Broadcast Networks Europe (BNE), along with other leading broadcasters and infrastructure operators from France, Italy, and Germany.

This profile is still under review by the European broadcasting industry. While this does reinforce the idea of 5G Broadcast being Europe-centric, it also indicates serious intent by major broadcasters as it becomes standardized in the next version of the ETSI specification as an expression of European requirements. It should therefore encourage manufacturers to integrate the profile into their products and usher in 5G Broadcast-enabled devices.

On top of this, various recent trials in Europe especially, have demonstrated that 5G Broadcast does work at scale and interoperate with linear and live TV services. There is a sense of the TV industry seizing the baton and exerting competitive pressure on manufacturers to support 5G Broadcast. There is also the prospect of greater longer-term convergence between terrestrial broadcast and cellular infrastructure for unified media delivery combining unicast, multicast and broadcast transmission.