The struggle for terrestrial broadcasters to gain relevance and a foothold in mobile services is not simply about standards, spectrum, or silicon. It is about control. Today, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) hold disproportionate control over the device ecosystem—dictating which smartphones and tablets support which features, who orders them from the manufacturer, who finances them, and ultimately what the consumer can access. This control is the single greatest barrier to broadcasters realising a direct relationship with audiences in the mobile environment.
Europe is at risk of walking directly into this trap. By tying their future to the 3GPP-defined 5G Broadcast standard, backed heavily by Qualcomm, European broadcasters are ceding their strategic autonomy to the same MNOs that have historically locked devices, dictated features, and suppressed free-to-air functionality. Meanwhile, India, the US, and soon Brazil are pursuing more balanced approaches—anchored in open devices, broadcaster-driven ecosystems, and collaborative development of standards like ATSC 3.0-based Direct-to-Mobile (D2M).
The conclusion is stark: Standards matter. But without control of the device ecosystem, broadcasters remain subject to MNO veto power. Europe can avoid that fate—by pivoting from a standards-first approach to an ecosystem-first approach. The winning formula is clear: seed open devices at scale, design for multi-waveform agility, and use standards-based tools to evolve on your own terms. Own part of the stack—or own none of the future.
The MNO grip on devices
MNOs exert their influence over consumers and manufacturers alike by controlling access to networks:
- Financing and Bundling: Subsidised and financed devices tether consumers to carriers, compelling manufacturers to design devices that favour MNO priorities.
- Software and Feature Dictation: Locked devices, preloaded bloatware, and feature-customisation demands shape user experiences around carrier needs, not consumer freedom.
- Technology and Standards Control: By dictating supported radio bands, network standards (4G, 5G, NR), and delaying disruptive shifts like eSIM adoption, MNOs prolong their dominance.
While Apple, Samsung, and Google counterbalance this with OS and brand power, the fact remains: the broadcaster-to-consumer relationship is filtered, constrained, and too often blocked outright by MNO imperatives.
Europe’s risky path
Europe’s broadcaster push around LTE-based 5G Broadcast affirms important technical virtues—receive-only mode, High Power High Tower (HPHT) operation, and SIM-free reception. Yet without ecosystem control, carrier retail channels can still frustrate free-to-air (FTA) reception on mass-market smartphones. With Qualcomm investing heavily in 5G Broadcast activities, European broadcasters are being steered into a future where:
- Device availability is at the mercy of MNOs.
- Free over-the-air broadcast reception may be throttled or outright disabled on carrier-sold devices.
- Silicon availability itself is slipping—IBC2025 discussions highlighted that the first wave of Qualcomm’s 5G Broadcast silicon will not arrive in devices until 2028.
- Broadcast is deployed on an LTE technology that will be out of date by 2028 and poorly equipped to evolve into 6G because there is no evolution in the road map.
This delays not only deployment but also places broadcasters in a subordinate position: waiting on MNOs and chipmakers to dictate when, how, and if free-to-air broadcast is accessible on smartphones.
India’s alternative: FREESTREAM and ATSC 3.0 D2M
In contrast, India—through FREESTREAM, IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Bombay, Prasar Bharati, Tejas Networks, and Sinclair’s ONE Media—is leading a broadcaster-led ecosystem:
- Open Devices First: Smartphones, feature phones, tablets, laptops, and dongles all built around open ATSC 3.0 D2M reception.
- Low-Cost On-Ramp: Targeting ~300 million digitally unconnected citizens with inexpensive feature phones and mid-tier smartphones, ensuring adoption at scale.
- SDR-Based Flexibility: Tejas’ P3 SDR chipset enables set-top and receiver diversity, bridging markets from India to global OEMs.
- SoC Integration of D2M: Multiple SoC vendors will fold D2M functionality into their SoCs as the 1 billion-strong market develops.
- Ecosystem Autonomy: Broadcasters and partners—not MNOs—set the rules for access, features, and evolution.
This strategy ensures that connectivity is democratised and that broadcasters are not marginalised by MNO-centric economics.
The US parallel: Sinclair, Edgebeam, and the Device Strategy
The US story is moving in parallel:
- David Smith’s Baltimore Sun Initiative: 10,000 tablets to be deployed as part of a hybrid e-paper/NextGen TV platform, proving how broadcasters can seed their own ecosystem.
- Edgebeam JV (Sinclair, Gray, Scripps, Nexstar): A coalition with massive scale, focusing on data applications in verticals including mobile and automotive, where broadcasters control the monetisation pathways.
- ONE Media’s Role: Aligning device and network development with ATSC 3.0 capabilities, ensuring broadcasters drive—not follow—the device roadmap.
By building devices, apps, and automotive integrations outside MNO channels, US broadcasters are reclaiming agency over their future.
Brazil’s missed opportunity, and its second chance
Broadcasters and the government did not invest significantly in promoting or developing the mobile TV segment, which was quickly overshadowed by the private sector’s investment in streaming and mobile networks. Smartphones provided a better viewing experience compared to the limited programming and functionality of 1seg. Brazil’s ISDB-T experiment showed the risks of failing to control device cost, programming and availability:
- Mobile ISDB-T receivers were expensive, niche, and failed to scale.
- Consumers defaulted to cheaper, MNO-controlled smartphones.
- Broadcaster aspirations eroded over time.
But Brazil’s pivot to ATSC 3.0 offers a second chance. By focusing on integrated, affordable devices across tiers, and leveraging lessons from India and the US, Brazil can reclaim momentum.
The strategic imperative: ecosystem control over standards
The critical insight: the standard itself is secondary to who controls the ecosystem.
- A device can support 5G Broadcast, DVB-T2/Lite, or ATSC 3.0—but if the MNO disables OTA reception, broadcasters lose.
- Conversely, if broadcasters and their partners build, seed, and control devices, they can dictate access regardless of the underlying waveform.
- Transitional capabilities like DVB-T2 FEF or ATSC 3.0 bootstrap mean broadcasters can evolve waveforms seamlessly, provided they hold ecosystem control.
- Anchor verticals: education, emergency information, maps/OTA updates, automotive software, data offload, public media.
Conclusion: Europe’s crossroads
Europe stands at a dangerous inflection point. Pursuing 5G Broadcast without securing device autonomy risks leaving broadcasters permanently subservient to MNOs. By contrast, India, the US, and a resurgent Brazil demonstrate that broadcaster-driven device ecosystems are viable, scalable, and strategically necessary.
Of equal importance is the evolution roadmap for ATSC, focused on Broadcast-to-Everything (B2X) to bring 3GPP alignment within ATSC of a true multicast capability. The road does not end with current deployments and those underway. There exist multiple paths to take on the defined needs of broadcasters globally. That extensibility goes beyond traditional broadcast bands and extends into the IMT bands to provide real opportunities for broadcast/multicast/broadband convergence.
