A New Hampshire-based LPTV station has filed the industry’s first application for an experimental 5G Broadcast STA from the FCC, part of an effort to demonstrate the technology’s viability in the U.S.
WWOO-LD, an LPTV owned by Milachi Media, LLC, in Westmoreland, NH, headed up by Bill Christian, filed the application last week. Christian is partnering with Frank Copsidas, founder of the LPTV Broadcasters Association founder and industry veteran Preston Padden to form a new venture called “XGen Network” to focus on the new technology.
The company plans to begin testing after FCC approval of the STA, which Copsidas thinks will be sometime this summer. It will broadcast a stream from NASA TV over 5G from its antenna atop One Beacon Street in Boston over digital channel 28.
Based on the 3GPP Further evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service broadcast standard (FeMBMS) 5G broadcast enables the distribution of linear media content via large radio cells with a radius of up to 60 km.
Copsidas elaborated on how he and his colleagues came across the new technology, which is based on Rohde & Schwarz’s testing of 5G broadcast for the past several years.
“Our goal is to launch 5G broadcasting in the U.S. and what we're doing at WWOO is a ‘proof of concept,’” Copsidas said. “I've been bothering Rohde & Shwarz about doing an experimental [5G broadcast] on one of my stations, but the problem was that there were no receivers in what is now the UHF band for TV, Channel 14-36.”
Copsidas says they have obtained prototypes—a smartphone and commercial receiver boxes that can tune into any channel on the UHF television band and that they expect to receive the equipment from Rohde & Schwarz by the end of June.
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In addition to the single stream, Copsidas says they will also be working with SpectraRep to test a separate data stream for first responders. “The advantage for public safety is a lot of times when something big happens, such as a hurricane or whatever, cellphone service goes down, so all first responders are left with is two way radio,” he said. “But broadcast tends to stay up during those periods. So this is yet another platform first responders would have to communicate.”
Copsidas thinks LPTVs are uniquely positioned to test and possibly deploy 5G broadcasts.
“LPTVs own more than 75% of all broadcast television licenses in the U.S.,” he said. “We’re best suited to cover the U.S., particularly rural markets. Secondly, there's a technical aspect—when you launch 5G broadcasts and you look at single frequency networks [SFNs] as part of the mix, you don't want 100,000W on one signal. In the end, you're in the middle of a market throwing out this huge signal that essentially will interfere with your SFNs because they want the same channel.”
“So we're better suited by nature,” he added.
With broadcasters currently rolling out ATSC 3.0, is this experiment considered competition to NextGen TV or a supplement? Copsidas offered his own opinion on the 3.0 rollout so far, which he characterized as “challenging.”
“I think Covid had a lot to do with a lot of the issues in broadcasting in general and the technical side,” he added. However, Copsidas also doesn’t think it’s time for LPTV to adopt 3.0 due to costs and the lack of signal contour protection.
“There's absolutely no reason for low power to go 3.0,” he said. “And the reason is, let's say it costs 75 grand to go 3.0 for low power—you can be displaced tomorrow, so there's no certainty and there's no business reason right now for any 3.0 or for any LPTV to go 3.0.
“So that’s why we're asking the FCC for protection of the contour,” he added.
Efforts to combine 5G and ATSC 3.0 have been ongoing for several years, spearheaded by Rohde & Schwarz. Although WWOO’s experiment will be 5G only, Copsidas says the tests could go a long way in helping to advance a combined scenario. Copsidas says he got good feedback from ATSC during the association’s annual meeting in Washington this week.
“I talked to [ATSC President] Madeleine Noland last night, and she was very excited because she sees ways we can work together,” Copsidas said.
