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RAI and IRT to test 5G broadcast applications

Test sites will be based in Munich and the Aosta Valley

Germany’s IRT and Italy’s RAI will both test 5G broadcast applications during the forthcoming European Championships.

The trials will run at test sites in Munich and the Aosta Valley during the inaugural event which takes place in Glasgow and Berlin (2nd-12th August).

The RAI and IRT trials aim to show how state-of-the-art mobile technologies, such as 5G, could be used for the distribution of public service media content and services. The trials will also illustrate a novel approach where mobile technologies are deployed on a conventional terrestrial broadcast network infrastructure and are configured to meet specific broadcast requirements, such as free-to-air delivery, wide-area coverage, and a cost-efficient distribution to mobile devices.

The IRT, in cooperation with BR and NOKIA, has deployed an eMBMS single-frequency-network that provides coverage across the city of Munich. The network uses a combination of unicast and broadcast features, both of which will be inherent in 5G, to simultaneously deliver the live TV broadcast as an MPEG-2 transport stream and HbbTV-like services. The same signal can also be received free-to-air on stationary TV receivers as well as on smartphones. This trial was partly funded by the 5G-XCast EU research project.

RAI Research & Innovation, in cooperation with the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany, will demonstrate a stand-alone precursor of 5G broadcast technology deployed on high-power terrestrial broadcast infrastructure. The demonstration is implemented on RAI’s open test network in the Aosta Valley, Italy, which allows up to five broadcast transmitters to operate in a single-frequency-network configuration. Live TV broadcast from the European Championships will be delivered to mobile devices in low and high mobility situations. UHD content will also be transmitted using the free-to-air second generation DVB terrestrial technology and shown on fixed TV sets, capable of displaying UHD with High Frame Rates and High Dynamic Range.