5G Broadcast: What can consumers expect?

Back in 2021, my colleague, Lorenzo Casaccia, authored this blog post that introduced the 5G Broadcast technology and its history. Since then, there has been significant progress made by developers and broadcasters around the world to trial this new technology. So now, I’d like to clarify some of the confusion in the marketplace and provide the current outlook for 5G Broadcast Technology.

What is 5G Broadcast?

5G Broadcast is a global terrestrial broadcast standard that was completed in 2020 as part of the 3GPP Release 16 specifications. It added enhanced features to the initial enhanced TV (enTV) standard that was part of 3GPP Release 14. 5G Broadcast has been endorsed as a standalone terrestrial broadcast system via ETSI TS103 720 technical specification and most recently by ITU-R where it is defined as a worldwide standard within ultra-high frequency (UHF) band. 5G Broadcast meets all broadcast requirements defined in 3GPP TR 38.913.

Who is 5G Broadcast for?

The short answer is broadcasters. In fact, 5G Broadcast is a technology designed specifically to target traditional broadcasters with a broadcast network infrastructure and UHF broadcast spectrum assets. In September 2023, 3GPP updated the specifications to add support for the broadcast bands noted in Table 1.

Due to its 3GPP heritage, 5G Broadcast is primarily focused on mobility use cases (e.g., smartphones). However, it does not require the network to support unicast nor the device to have a SIM card or a cellular subscription for free-to-air broadcast reception. While unicast is not required, 5G Broadcast can be combined with unicast to deliver a fully hybrid, integrated user experience leveraging the best aspects of unicast and broadcast technologies. Let me explain with an example later in this blog post.

What about mobile broadcast initiatives in the past?

In the past, there were several attempts to introduce broadcast capabilities in mobile devices, including 3G MBMS, DVB-H and MediaFLO. Despite introducing many technological advances with mobile devices in mind, these past initiatives withered away for a variety of reasons. First, cellular operators as the service providers needed expensive and complex content acquisitions. Second, these operators were required to invest in new infrastructure to add broadcast capability. Third, mobile devices required specialized hardware to support DVB-H and MediaFLO. In summary, supporting broadcast in a mobile device effectively increased both operational and device costs, in effect reducing affordability and availability of broadcast support on phones. Not to mention these broadcast standards were regional, which required device manufacturers to build different models for each region; for example, MediaFLO devices for the U.S. and DVB-H devices in select European countries. This was one major cost and logistics challenge for device manufacturers as they could not take advantage of economies of scale.

What does it take to support 5G Broadcast on mobile devices?

While 5G Broadcast is indeed a broadcast technology, it intentionally leverages most of the building blocks from a 4G/5G cellular modem. This can significantly lower the barrier for mobile devices already with cellular connectivity to also support 5G Broadcast (e.g., smartphones).

Table 2 shows how 5G Broadcast could reuse several building blocks that already exist in any 4G/5G cellular modem. To illustrate this further, I also included a comparison with another advanced broadcast technology, ATSC 3.0. Supporting ATSC 3.0 in a mobile device would require a separate set of hardware and software building blocks. It is also worth noting that this comparison would hold with any other mobile broadcast technology.

Reusing existing cellular modem building blocks can lower chip complexity (i.e., die area) and save PCB space, allowing sleeker device form factor, reduced device power and total cost.

A key lesson learned from the past attempts of mobile broadcast is its success depends on more than just its technical merits but also the overall support in devices (i.e., it needs to reach critical mass). Thanks to the potential cost synergy outlined above, we anticipate 5G Broadcast to be a very attractive broadcast technology solution for consumers, mobile OEMs, broadcasters and the broader ecosystem.

Dynamic switching between unicast and 5G Broadcast

What new use cases can 5G broadcast enable?

Beyond the technology benefits, 5G Broadcast can also enable many attractive new use cases that bring value to consumers. For the rest of this blog post, let me highlight the top three use cases in my opinion.

Efficient free-to-air or zero-rated media content delivery

5G Broadcast can bring new network efficiency when it comes to delivering zero-rated media content to the mass public. An example of this is from a livestream of a soccer match or a presidential debate. When this content is watched simultaneously by a large number of viewers over unicast cellular connections, it creates a huge burden on the network, reducing quality of service and increasing delivery costs for network operators. With 5G Broadcast, live content can be delivered to thousands or even millions of users without the same data being sent individually to each user using unicast.

Let me illustrate this in a simple figure above. The red curve in the figure depicts how data traffic on a unicast network peaks with thousands of viewers requesting the same content on the unicast network. When such video is delivered to viewers over the 5G Broadcast network using broadcast frequencies, the peak traffic on unicast network could be substantially reduced as illustrated by the green curve. In this scenario, the broadcast network would augment unicast network by dynamically offloading excess traffic from unicast to broadcast network.

The benefit of dynamically offloading to 5G Broadcast (i.e., point #1 in the figure above) is a more robust, uninterrupted video playback user experience. Additionally, freeing up resources on unicast network benefits other users on the network who are using data for other activities. And for high-mobility users who may move outside the 5G Broadcast service area (i.e., point #2 in the figure above), they can continue to receive the same content with their device seamlessly switching to the unicast network for uninterrupted playback of this content.

Our infrastructure partner Rohde & Schwarz demonstrated seamless switching between unicast and broadcast on Qualcomm-powered proof-of-concept mobile devices. As you can see in the figure above, media player starts playback of content using unicast network. If player discovers same content is available on the broadcast network, it switches to the broadcast network seamlessly. When broadcast network becomes unavailable, media player goes back to unicast mode without interruption. This intelligent routing of data traffic happens automatically without any user intervention.

With 5G Broadcast, broadcast network operators and mobile network operators could collaborate for a hybrid scheme where highly popular, live content could be delivered through 5G Broadcast when available. In this scenario, content delivered over broadcast network would be classified as zero-rated and it would not count towards the consumer's monthly data cap — another welcomed benefit for consumers. In summary, novel and creative business models can be enabled when the broadcast network and mobile network operators work together to address customers’ needs in certain scenarios such as using 5G Broadcast infrastructure instead of unicast when there is broadcast signal and using unicast infrastructure when users moves out of broadcast network coverage.

5G Broadcast emergency notification sent via 5G Broadcast during field trials in China

Robust emergency notification for public safety

During public emergencies and disaster events like earthquakes, wildfires, floods and tornados, our smartphone can turn into a life-saving device if it is robustly connected. In the unfortunate scenario that the cellular network becomes disabled from structural damages (e.g., in case of an earthquake), public authorities could still use the broadcast infrastructure to communicate with smartphones that support broadcast services. This is because the high-tower broadcasting sites are more physically resilient. This is a priority for many public safety agencies, and 5G Broadcast has become a prime candidate to enable services that can facilitate invaluable direct communications (e.g., sending emergency information and lifesaving instructions) with the ones who need it the most.

Recently one of the largest television networks in China, Sichuan Radio and Television, successfully showcased broadcast of TV, radio and emergency messages using 5G Broadcast.  An emergency alert is generated and sent from broadcast core network using one of their terrestrial broadcast towers located in Chengdu. This alert is instantly received and displayed on Qualcomm powered test devices that could be in active use or standby mode. This demonstration showed how 5G Broadcast could be used by public safety agencies to alert public during major emergencies.

Enhanced venue casting at sporting events or concerts

Events such as motorsports racing, Olympic games, football matches and large festivals pose a real challenge for mobile operators since large number of users in close proximity will share nearby limited network resources like a cellular tower simultaneously. For these scenarios 5G Broadcast could fill a much-needed role in ensuring all users in the area can smoothly stream high-definition video content from the event without overloading cellular towers nearby.

In August 2023, ORS, in cooperation with ServusTV and Dorna in-venue casted the MotoGPTM race event. This demonstration showcased how 5G Broadcast is perfectly suited for live video delivery to users’ smartphones at the event with no impact on nearby cellular towers. For actual demonstration, four different live video feeds were sent to a small broadcast van equipped with a low-latency encoder, 5G Broadcast core, modulator and transmitter. Using this mobile setup, several attendees were able to watch live video feeds sent from various cameras located around the racetrack. Demonstration was a success with high-quality video playback without any interruption and with very low latency. You can read more about this demonstration here.

What’s next?

For broadcasters, 5G Broadcast can unlock access to billions of devices while bringing new experiences and benefits to consumers in both developed and emerging countries.

Among broadcast partners, there is significant interest to learn and get started with 5G Broadcast. We are observing an acceleration of momentum as more broadcasters and developer partners are getting test devices powered by Qualcomm Technologies. Only in 2023, there were more than 17 demonstrations and small-scale trials in several countries including China, USA, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Estonia and Czech Republic. Additionally, there are more countries including India, Malaysia and Turkiye that are studying 5G Broadcast for potential trials in near future. Looking ahead into 2024, we are anticipating larger-scale trials planned around UEFA Euro 2024 and Summer Olympics.

That’s all for now. To learn more, join me at CES 2024, as I will be participating in an industry panel with other experts to talk about the future with 5G Broadcast. I also plan to elaborate on a few more use cases and provide an update on ecosystem progress, so be sure to stay tuned.