European broadcasters ink 5G Broadcast MoU
JULY 7, 2023 10.28 EUROPE/LONDON BY CHRIS DZIADUL

Leading European broadcasters have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the eve of the World Radio Conference 2023 for the cooperation on joint activities concerning 5G Broadcast in Europe.

The aim of the broadcasters ¬– from France (France Télévisions), Italy (RAI), Germany (SWR, BR), the Netherlands (NPO), Ireland (RTÉ) and Austria (ORF/ORS) – is to cooperate on activities to further define broadcast services and opportunities together with validating their business models. Numerous jointly developed 5G Broadcast applications and commercial use cases will be presented around the UEFA Champions League and 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. This work will enable the broadcasters to accurately assess the feasibility of adopting and rolling-out of the new transmission standard within the next number of years.

According to Michael Wagenhofer, MD ORS Group, “the goal is to enable a European 5G Broadcast ecosystem for public media, cultural operators, creatives and audiovisual content providers, to reach mobile devices via direct reception and to make 5G broadcast market-ready. With this future-proof development, new use cases and business models such as car-entertainment systems, emergency warning and information services or for the metaverse will also be possible”.

The broadcasters note that the technology provides easy and democratically important access to audiovisual content. It also enables network operators and media content providers to deliver content and data to a large number of consumers in a crisis-proof manner – during live events, for example – without affecting the 5G mobile network. 5G Broadcast-based services will supplement existing DTT deployments and advance terrestrial networks for an IP-driven future.

The basis for interference-free broadcasting is the UHF frequency spectrum between 470 MHz and 694 MHz, which has been proven throughout Europe and is in addition to broadcasting used exclusively for live productions by cultural institutions using wireless production technology.