DVB 5G
While convergence between the broadcast and mobile systems (and even among the broadcast systems themselves) has proved elusive, those on both sides have long recognized the potential for mutual benefits if ways could be found to interwork, if not actually converge. Several efforts have already targeted this goal, most failing to reach the market due to a lack of ecosystem support rather than technical issues. Still, bridges between the two industries continue to flourish.
While broadcast systems initially targeted fixed television, most of them progressively evolved to also deliver broadcast services to mobile devices.
While initially tailored for mobile point-to-point voice communications, the mobile industry – just like the broadcast industry – has faced a shift in user demand towards streaming and on-demand multimedia consumption, resulting in an increased level of traffic over networks and triggering the need for network adaptation. This led to cellular broadcast technologies whose evolution spanned across several generations and finally resulted in a practical 5G Broadcast system.
To leverage new 5G features and capabilities for media distribution, from Release 16, 3GPP defines a 5G Media Streaming (5GMS) System that enables media distribution over 5G networks by third parties other than MNOs. The 5GMS system allows 5G networks to provide technical and commercial opportunities for collaboration, beyond merely acting as a bit pipe. The 5GMS supports value-added services such as content hosting, network assistance and dynamic network Quality of Service (QoS) policies, as well as reporting of consumption and Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics for analysis and optimization purposes. Such collaboration models facilitate video traffic monetization and revenue sharing between MNOs and content providers. While the first version of the 5GMS System focuses on media delivery over unicast, Multicast/Broadcast delivered using 5G New Radio (NR) is a key new feature introduced by 3GPP in Release 17, and the combination of this with 5GMS is specified in Release 18.
Service layer collaboration, for instance between broadcast and broadband, appears when broadcast content is interlinked with other content received over bi-directional broadband networks. The DVB-I service layer is the most recent of such systems to be released. It can be combined with the use of HbbTV and its most recent update made possible collaboration with non-DVB networks, such as 3GPP ones. One potential benefit is the ability to support integrated DVB-I hybrid services, i.e., services for which the basic broadcast distribution is augmented with 5G unicast for extended service coverage, lower distribution costs, improved quality, or additional user experiences.
For transitional purposes, combined solutions involving both 5G and DVB networks for their own strengths could seamlessly coexist thanks to DVB-I and its extension to support 5G technologies. In low connectivity areas for instance, DVB-NIP over existing satellite links (DVB-S2) can be used to reach legacy devices – without any device adaptation – through Wi-Fi hotspots, especially indoors. Such a combination could alleviate the current spectral efficiency disadvantage of 5G by removing the need to take indoor coverage into account in the link budget, which also reduces the number of transmission towers needed to cover a given target reception area.Such a 5G/DVB-NIP combination is totally seamless for end users thanks to the interworking between heterogeneous distribution networks that DVB-I enables at the service layer. In addition, this scenario’s relevance is strengthened by the fact that DVB-NIP is also envisioned for feeding 5G base stations.
