Tuesday 3 September 2024

European Market Players Join For 5G Broadcast Smartphones

Receiver profile for Europe released for review
The European 5G Broadcast handset taskforce, gathering EBU and BNE members, meets a major milestone for the introduction of smartphones with 5G Broadcast terrestrial radio and television reception functionality in Europe.

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 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 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.

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.

Broadcast Networks Europe, BNE is a trade organisation representing the terrestrial broadcast network operators in Europe and internationally. BNE’s 19 members are operating in 21 European countries.