Milestones for Native IP and DVB-I over 5G

03.07.2020

Two recently initiated DVB work items reached important milestones at this week’s Steering Board meeting. The commercial requirements for native IP video delivery over broadcast satellite were approved; and work will proceed on the creation of commercial requirements for the use of DVB-I as a service layer on top of 5G technologies.

The 95th meeting of the DVB Steering Board took place completely online for the first time, as was the case for the meetings of the Commercial and Technical Modules in the preceding weeks.

Peter MacAvock (EBU) was re-elected as DVB Chair for a further two-year period.

Native IP

The commercial requirements for DVB Native IP were created in the CM-S (Satellite) working group under the chairmanship of Thomas Wrede (SES). The vision is a system that provides television, radio and data services in a native IP format, directly tailored for IP-enabled end-user devices, over broadcast links.

Applications of native IP video delivery via satellite are numerous, spanning from multiscreen consumption of pay-TV content at home, to e-learning in remote places, as well as content distribution to communities, hospitals, cruise ships, airports, shopping centres, planes and many more.

The use cases outlined in the commercial requirements cover both B2B and B2C scenarios. It is noted that the commercial demand is initially likely to be in B2B sectors, for example delivering content via satellite to public Wi-Fi hotspots or mobility use cases. Commercial demand for solutions targeting the B2C segment, such as next generation DTH, may still be some years away.

The technical work to deliver a specification that meets the commercial requirements will begin immediately in the Technical Module.

DVB-I over 5G

A DVB study mission on 5G had previously noted three areas of particular interest for DVB services: 5G unicast, 5G broadcast, and 5G fixed wireless access. With the work on broadcast and media streaming in 3GPP Release 16 nearing completion, the DVB Steering Board has tasked the CM-I working group with the capture of commercial requirements for the use of DVB-I as a 5G media service layer. The end goal would be an integrated solution that permits the distribution of a DVB-I service over multiple distribution means, in the context of, but not limited to, 5G delivery.

The CM-I task force will be led by Thomas Stockhammer (Qualcomm).