Telecommunication broadcasting convergence
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APT REPORT On “TELECOMMUNICATION BROADCASTING CONVERGENCE” No. APT/AWG/REP-30 Edition: September 2012
Source: AWG-13/OUT-01 APT REPORT ON TELECOMMUNICATION BROADCASTING CONVERGENCE
After organization restructuring and rebranding AWF to AWG (doc.AWF-9/OUT-03), the scope of work of Convergence Working Group that related to study on telecommunication broadcasting convergence was handled in the Task Group of Radiocommunication Convergence (TG RC) within the Working Group Service and Applications (WG S&A). The ToR of TG RC is the as following:
Based on several input documents and presentations which were received and presented in the WG-SA, as well as some more other references, this document will illustrate the following aspects related to telecommunication broadcasting convergence:
This document is also related to other documents which were developed by Convergence WG, i.e. Report on the Regulatory Aspect of Fixed Mobile Convergence (doc. AWF-7/OUT-07 and adopted as doc.APT/AWF/REP-09) and Report of the Standardization Progress of Fixed Mobile Convergence (doc. APT/AWF/REP-17).
New broadcasting trends and technical aspects: As identified by (doc.AWG-10/INP-28-rev1):The Internet “coverage” now reaches more consumers, than the coverage provided by the terrestrial broadcasting network in several countries, meaning that anyone with an Internet access can take part of Internet based media services. The significant increase of the Internet penetration is probably the single largest change in the media market in recent years. For broadcasting TV, content on new “Play-based” services are among the most popular programme contents on the Internet. Broadcasting TV content in the future is expected to fill an equally important role for consumers on the Internet anywhere and anytime as that on the linear reception on TV screens in living rooms. In a converging world and thanks to the new “Play-based” services on Internet, also those consumers interested in culture, folklore, local traditions, music and sports no longer dependent on tableau programme schedules to watch the drama, theatre, concerts and events. The range of sport programmes have been developed by offerings of simulcasting of sports in the context of the major events and thus could be made available to everyone and everywhere in a simple and transparent manner. The newly available “Play-based” content is expected to further stimulate the demand for broadband access to include other and new groups of consumers, than the early adopters, creating opportunities for countries to accelerate fixed and mobile broadband deployments. Broadcasting TV programmes such as news, society, community affairs and factual programming available and based on Internet can be used in schools, also for schools located in more remote areas, for educational purposes. For the societal information TV programmes, the Internet can make room for more interactive discussions and explanations. Although, some content such as news coverage program, which can easily be made available very quickly on the Internet, still requires editors with sizeable resources and trustworthy information, which broadcasters can provide. In a changing media landscape fixed, mobile and broadcasting service providers will be offering services on the Internet as an integral part of their core businesses of broadcasting and telecommunications; accordingly. The convergence between telecommunication and broadcasting has been accelerated by the development of ubiquitous network technologies, such as broadband, mobile communication, digital broadcasting and internet technologies, which produce Media Ubiquitous. The elimination of borders between Telecommunication and Broadcasting has been realized and triggered by the growth of technological innovation. Besides, there are some other motivations of telecommunication broadcasting convergence. As identified by (doc.AWF-8/INP-65), there are two factors involved, i.e. improving user experience and enhancing service efficiency. These can be achieved because of media ubiquitous (lots of accessibility/connectivity, various terminals/devices, many suppliers and many service choices). The convergence of terminals, shows that variety of ubiquitous terminals such as home appliance themselves are used for both communication and broadcasting like Telephone, TV and PC. Another point is raised by (doc.AWF-7/INP-54), where network simplification by minimizing the number of infrastructures, network nodes and service nodes is also important in the telecommunication broadcasting convergence. This means that both telecommunication and broadcasting services can use the same network infrastructure. It was also pointed out that a unified network approach can be more efficient, both technologically and economically. Technological aspects include higher spatial reuse factor of frequencies, lower infrastructure costs in sparsely populated rural area [16]. Economic efficiency is increased on the one hand by the possibility of eliminating redundant broadcasting infrastructure and by increasing social welfare from higher capacities available. Another view [17] identified that drivers for convergence can be categorized into four areas: technological evolution, business and market concerns, users’ demand, and regulatory policies. From the technology point of view, digitization of all types of signals facilitates duplication, transmission, and manipulation of any type of information and hence makes convergence possible. As business concerns, faced with market saturation and the prospect of stagnation, the telecomm industry is now seeking new opportunities through convergence. Users’ needs related to mobility, portability, and high speed also contribute to the progress of convergence. In Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) various data services based on interactive two-way communication are available, which allows, for instance, users to watch films while searching for information in the background or executing other tasks such as home shopping. The convergence between telecommunications and broadcasting is heavily dependent on regulatory arrangements, especially on the degree to which broadcasting and telecoms are regulated by a single body.
Besides IPTV, Internet TV or OTT (Over the Top) TV should also be taken into account. IPTV has matured (in the few countries where it has been able to grow) into another form of pay TV, and involves the delivery of high quality video content to a captive consumer device over a managed network. On the other hand, Internet TV (or Over-the-Top TV), defined as the distribution of video content to a wide range of IP-enabled devices (TVs, PCs, mobile phones and tablets) over the unmanaged Internet, has the potential to shift the existing balance of power within the broadcast sector and the wider communications industry.
There are several standardization organizations involved, and some examples are identified in the following Table: Table-1 Related Standardization Bodies
The following section will provide a summary of the telecommunication-broadcasting related standards:
In 3GPP Release 8 the Integrated Mobile Broadcast (IMB) service has been standardised.
In 3GPP Release 9, LTE was extended with broadcasting functionality, termed evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) [18]. Unlike the 3G broadcast technology IMB, which is an overlay network using dedicated hardware, eMBMS uses the regular LTE shared channel. Consequently, eMBMS may be deployed without adding new hardware in the RAN.
ITU-T has been spearheading the standardization in IPTV for NGN since 2006. Responding to market demands, the Focus Group on IPTV concentrated on architecture, QoS, security, end-system and multimedia applications. After the first set of draft was published in 2007, `the focus group was substituted by IPTV-GSI (IPTV Global Standardization Initiative). IPTV-GSI is a coordinator of all ITU-T’s IPTV related activities, as its work is connecting six Study Groups (SGs 9, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17) together and covering end-to-end solutions including multimedia, QoE/QoS, network architecture, security, signalling protocols and secondary distribution.
Telecommunication and broadcasting will be converged mainly in the service layer, so that there should be a business model which can take the advantage of the resource from both sides and protect the mutual interest. Home based TV services can provide diverse digital media services through broadband cable network using Internet protocol and present to the end user on TV. AS these services integrate different features from different networks, it is regarded as the most appropriate candidate for the merging business model. Telecommunication services come away back from the implementation of telegraph networks, invention of telephone, implementation of switched network until the booming of internet as one of telecommunication media these days. Telecommunication services were engineered from voice communication services, data communication services and they would reach the multimedia era where all kind information (voice, video, data, text, picture, even applications) can be transferred inside the networks to fulfill not only the communication needs of users, but also their needs of transactions and even entertainment. Telecommunication services were changing from just telephony services towards the ubiquitous services. Some factors [19] are driving those changes such as the emerging of advanced applications in terms of advanced telecommunication capabilities and spur developments of computing platforms and capabilities. Telecommunication services as offered by telecommunication operators (fixed and mobile) can be classified in general view as follows:
On the other side, broadcasting services can be viewed as a service to distribute information from source to all audiences which usually done electronically. Broadcasting services distribute the information in an audio visual form to the receiving parties that can be a general public or a relatively large subset of thereof. Broadcasting services also considered as one form of electronic media services. In recent years, television or TV broadcasting services are the common broadcasting services that can deliver multimedia contents to their audiences. TV broadcasting services can be classified as follows:
In recent years, telecommunication, Internet and broadcasting services have been vertically integrated as businesses and facilities (denote hardware and software required to provide services). It was described [20], the integration is depicted by a silo or stovepipe metaphor, as shown in Figure 1. 
Figure-1 Vertically integrated traditional telecommunications and broadcasting businesses Broadcasting service has been a one to many, one-way service, but it progressively becoming two-way utilizes telephone service and short message service to allow the audience to respond and react to programme material. Broadcasting service starts to gain its interactivity in this case. The use of digital broadcasting technology empowers this capability trough broadband network. [20]
In the last decade, telecommunication, internet and broadcasting technologies were developed in a huge speed which shows new requirements for advanced services. In telecommunication services, some technologies push the services to the convergences, i.e. mobile communication technologies and all-IP based technologies. 
Figure-2 Mobile communication technologies evolution All-IP technologies also drive the telephone services towards a new generation telephony services based on IP, known as Next Generation Networks (NGN) services, based on IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architectures. This will enable the convergence in both fixed and mobile services which will support the implementation of Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC). 
Figure-3 3GPP/TISPAN IMS architectural overview On the Broadcasting side, many efforts in developing advanced technologies were targeted to achieve high efficiency in transmission resources. Digital transmission methods were introduced to deliver TV contents to audiences. Those technologies enable broadcasting services to use telecommunication facilities as their transmission media. New challenges arisen for broadcasting services, i.e. Quality of Services (QoS), Quality of Experience (QoE), interoperability, user mobility and network management. Technologies such as Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB), Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB/DAB+), Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB), Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM), variants of Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB-x), Media Forward Link Only (MediaFLO), Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Services (MBMS), Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and internet based TV are known technologies that changes the broadcasting services. As mentioned earlier, evolution happens in both telecommunication and broadcasting sides. Digitalization and IP based technology open the possibility of the convergence between telecommunication and broadcasting technologies, which lead to the deliverable of convergence services. Next generation broadcasting services can be obtained from anywhere, any time and by any means. Some telecommunication and broadcasting convergence services can be described as follow, i.e.:
Mobile TV service is a service that enables the use of mobile phone devices as TV receivers. It may be a paid TV service or free-to-air TV service. This service can be delivered using cellular network infrastructure, mobile broadcasting network or the combination of both networks. Technologies supporting this service can be divided into two categories, i.e. mobile cellular technologies and mobile broadcasting technologies. Mobile TV service in cellular networks starts to establish along with the increasing capability of data transmission in the cellular networks. The implementation of 3GPP’s WCDMA technologies (HSDPA, HSUPA and HSPA) and the potential of 3GPP’s OFDMA based network (LTE and LTE Advanced) drive the launch of mobile TV service for mobile users. Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Service (MBMS) was defined by 3GPP in UMTS Release 6, as the architecture to enable the efficient transmission of multimedia data through mobile network. MBMS keeps evolving along with the evolution of 3GPP’s physical layer towards LTE-Advance and is called e-MBMS (enhanced MBMS). On the other side, the mobile TV using mobile broadcasting technologies are more competitive than the mobile TV based on cellular technologies, due to its nature focusing on delivering multimedia services to the users. This service uses one way dedicated broadcast network and has relatively small screen on its device, with mobile and low power consumption capability. Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H) as extension of DVB-T technology is already approved by European Union as preferred technology for mobile terrestrial broadcasting services. Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB) is a digital radio transmission system for sending multimedia (radio, TV, and data casting) to mobile devices such as mobile phones. It is an extension to the Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) standard and this technology was first developed in South Korea. This standard is adopted in South Korea and DMB trials are currently taking place in several European countries. To increase spectrum efficiency of the T-DMB, Advanced T-DMB (AT-DMB) system has been developed. The AT-DMB guarantees backward compatibility with the T-DMB using hierarchical modulation mechanism. Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial (ISDB-T) is a satellite-to-tower system used in Japan to provide digital service to TV sets and handheld mobile units. China is also currently entering into the mobile broadcasting arena with its own mobile Television and multimedia industry standard known as the China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB).
IPTV is defined as multimedia services such as television/video/audio/text/graphics/data delivered over IP based networks managed to provide the required level of QoS/QoE, security, interactivity and reliability. It is clear that IPTV aims neither to enhance the viewing of TV channels in the audience side nor to increase the efficiency of delivering TV services on the provider side[21] [22]. Two general objectives of IPTV are to provide personalized TV service and enable other services such as voice communication and internet access which act as triple play bundled services (voice, data and video). IPTV utilizes broadband IP connections and most of the implementation uses fixed broadband network (xDSL or optical network). The IPTV infrastructure can be deployed either with centralized or distributed video server architectures. The centralized IPTV is simply the content delivery network used in today’s VOD service. However, the architecture is only good for relatively small network and requires adequate core and edge bandwidth. The distributed IPTV is ideal for large network deployment by using P2P method. It is a scalable architecture that has advantage in bandwidth usages, but it requires content distribution system for effective delivery over scattered network nodes. IPTV employs IP multicasting for the delivery of digital TV services. IP Multicast is a method in which information can be sent to multiple computers at the same time. The playback of IPTV requires either a personal computer or a set-top box connected to a TV. Video content is typically compressed using either a MPEG-2 or a MPEG-4 codec. IPTV offers some benefits compared to traditional TV services such as personalization, interactivity and security for both subscribers and providers. Some features of IPTV are from [22]:
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