No. 298 (April 2004)
At the time of writing this editorial, the first session of the ITU's Regional Radiocommunication Conference (RRC-04) is just a few weeks away: it will be held in Geneva on 10 - 28 May 2004. In conjunction with a second session to be held in late 2005 or, more likely, in 2006, the primary objective is to revise the 1961 Stockholm Plan to facilitate the introduction of digital terrestrial broadcasting (radio and TV) in Bands III, IV and V – whilst protecting analogue broadcast services, many of which are likely to be required for years to come.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that the 1961 Stockholm ITU Conference was a great success. Since 1961, the number of broadcasting services in the European Broadcasting Area has dramatically increased. Although most of these assignments were not envisaged during the Stockholm Conference, the flexible framework of the Plan continues to serve us well even today.
Few of the participants in the 1961 Conference could have believed that their work would have any value more than 40 years later. That success is even more surprising when you realize that 1961 coincided with the height of the Cold War. Much time and effort was spent trying to resolve delicate issues, such as frequency planning in the Berlin area. It is noteworthy that the Berlin Wall was erected in August 1961 – just two months after the Conference finished.
Fortunately, Europe is no longer divided – but replanning for digital terrestrial broadcasting will not be confined to the European Broadcasting Area. The area to be covered by the ITU Conference will include most of ITU Region 1, specifically west of 170° E and north of 40° S (including Europe, Africa and all of Russia except for its easternmost extremities), together with Iran. Hence, in addition to revising the 1961 Stockholm Plan, the second session of the Conference will revise the 1989 Geneva Plan for Africa.
The forthcoming Conference is more ambitious than the 1961 Conference because it must accommodate the diverse needs of all of the Administrations. Not only do different Administrations have different views about the speed of the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting, but the technological future seems more uncertain than ever.
In 1961, the basic assumption was that all of the planned services (FM radio and analogue TV) would be received on antennas mounted at 10 metres above ground level. Remember that the first transistor radios were launched after 1961. In fact, the earliest transistor radios could not operate in the VHF band and, hence, the first "portable" radios worked only in the LF and MF bands. Of course, few people listen today to FM radio services using roof-top antennas. Radio has now become a "portable" and "mobile" medium.
The introduction of digital broadcasting offers an opportunity to ensure that broadcasters can meet the expectations of the public in terms of portability and mobility. The Eureka-147 DAB system was designed from the outset to deliver reliable services on the move. It is tempting to assume that TV will follow the example of radio and become a portable and mobile medium. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that consumption of TV services is still typically static. It is not obvious whether this is due to the fact that analogue TV broadcasting rarely delivers satisfactory results on set-top or mobile antennas or because consumers simply want to watch TV on fixed large screens in their homes.
A key benefit of the COFDM technologies used in DAB and DVB-T (as well as in Digital Radio Mondiale's system for the LF, MF and HF bands) is that these systems can deliver excellent quality in conditions that would give unusable reception of analogue services. The DVB-T system was designed to deliver satisfactory reception on roof-top antennas, but many experiments have demonstrated that it can also work well for mobile and portable receivers. Indeed, the DVB Project is currently working on the DVB-H system, which is based on DVB-T with the addition of some features that are useful for "handheld" devices, such as mobile phones.
Do consumers really want to watch TV in their cars? In some parts of the developing world covered by the forthcoming Conference, the idea of TV sets in cars seems to be an unattainable luxury for most people. Elsewhere, the idea is attractive – at least to some broadcasters and some network operators. I can see that wealthy consumers might demand TV sets in their cars – especially if digital broadcasts can solve the problems of mobile reception. On the other hand, in most developed countries, the majority of cars seem to have only one occupant – the driver! As road safety is obviously paramount, legal restrictions will prevent the driver watching in-car TV. Hence, it seems to me that the business case for in-car TV must depend on the few occasions per year when children need to be entertained on long journeys. Whilst this might seem to be an attractive proposition, my personal guess is that such children will prefer to view their favourite film or cartoon from a DVD rather than watching live broadcasts. The only solid market for in-car TV reception appears to be those people who are rich enough to employ a chauffeur!
Even more questionable in my mind is the idea that people will pay €1.50 or so to watch a 30-second video-on-demand clip, perhaps showing one of this afternoon's goals from a football match. Football enthusiasts may salivate over this prospect, but are they really interested in viewing replays of goals on a 5 cm screen? Having seen some demonstrations, I regret to say that "seeing" a moving ball on such a tiny screen is almost impossible!
Despite my personal scepticism about in-car TV reception and handheld TV, who knows what will happen in the new Plan's lifetime of, perhaps, 40 years? Will HDTV become the norm? Will it be possible to deliver HDTV quality at bitrates of less than 1 Mbit/s? Will we have 3D TV? Will on-demand services delivered via cables or optical fibres become ubiquitous? What will replace transistors and silicon chips? Will analogue broadcasting have disappeared completely?
We can expect the cost of processing power and storage will drop dramatically during this period. €100 will currently buy 512 MB of RAM (Random-Access Memory) or a hard disk with 120 GB capacity. If prices fall by 50% every 18 months, 20 years from now, €100 would buy 50 GB of RAM or a hard disk with 12 TB capacity. The availability of massive storage capacity in cheap consumer devices could transform traditional linear broadcasting into an on-demand medium.
Whatever happens, it is unlikely that spectrum will become more abundant. From a spectrum planning perspective, it is important to note that reliable services for mobile and portable receivers require much more spectrum than reception on roof-top antennas. Obviously, each country will make its own decisions about how to use the radio spectrum for digital terrestrial broadcasting – but this could have significant implications when adjacent countries make different decisions.
Whereas the 1961 Plan was based on a fairly uniform pattern of service requirements, the new Plan must accommodate the very diverse requirements of many more countries – as well as the differing timetables for the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting, even in adjacent countries.
Having acknowledged the outstanding success of the 1961 Stockholm Conference, the best outcome from the forthcoming Conference would be a Plan that will be regarded as a success in 2050 and beyond!
Philip Laven
Director
EBU Technical Department
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