In an aim to drive the introduction of smartphones with 5G Broadcast reception in Europe, members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Broadcast Networks Europe (BNE), with the support of Qualcomm Technologies, have formed a working group to establish a common receiver profile for 5G Broadcast.
The involved market players are France Télévisions and TDF from France, RAI and EITowers from Italy, Media Broadcast from Germany and ORS from Austria. The group has finalised a 5G Broadcast receiver profile for Europe and submitted it to 5G-MAG, the industry association which, among other tasks, oversees the development and maintenance of the 5G Broadcast specification (ETSI TS 103 720). The profile is publicly available and open for review and feedback from the European broadcast industry.
The common goal is to add this profile into the next version of the ETSI specification to communicate the European requirements for a profile that will ensure harmonisation across Europe to allow and encourage chipset and CE manufactures to incorporate the profile in their development roadmaps.
“5G Broadcast is a great technology, which has been supported by several EBU members in a series of trials in Europe since 2020. The Olympic large-scale demo in the last weeks in France, with hundreds of consumer devices, is marking a key evolution moving towards market introduction. The definition of the European profile gives a clear indication to all Chipset and CE manufacturers on the market needs in Europe. The launch of a 24H/7 demonstration service in five main urban areas in Italy in 2025 will further accelerate the implementation of 5G Broadcast in the development roadmaps of key manufacturers,” said Antonio Arcidiacono, CTO and CIO at EBU.
Lars Backlund, Secretary General at BNE, added: “BNE supports 5G Broadcast as part of our innovation roadmap. In addition to spectrum security and along with roll out and investments in 5G Broadcast transmission infrastructure the broadcast network operators also support the development of a viable handset ecosystem. Having a common receiver profile across Europe is a necessary element to achieve this goal.”
Lorenzo Casaccia, VP, Technical Standards at Qualcomm Europe, said: “The collaboration among Europe’s major broadcasters and broadcast network operators to harmonise 5G Broadcast receiver requirements marks a pivotal advancement for the 5G Broadcast ecosystem. This unified effort will be an invaluable resource for developers, receiver manufacturers and infrastructure vendors, propelling the commercial deployment of 5G Broadcast technology worldwide.”
5G Broadcast has been ready for commercial rollout since early 2023. Standardisation has been largely completed, trial operations by major broadcasters in Europe have been underway for several years, and the first smartphone prototypes including 5G Broadcast features have been developed. The broadcast ecosystem benefits from harmonised technical requirements for end-user devices (mobile phones) to ensure compatibility across Europe, also allowing business models for broadcasters and broadcast network operators.
