Geneva hosted from last 26 March to 3 April the first meeting of working party 6A (WP 6A) of ITU-R, whose activity encompasses all matters concerning terrestrial broadcasting systems.
The meeting was attended by 94 delegates from 34 administrations and 21 representatives from industry, universities and other organisations.
Regarding digital television broadcasting, a highlight was the attempted creation by the administration from the United States of America (USA) of a new ITU-R recommendation that could make available a full and detailed description of version 3.0 of the ATSC standard, so that it could be ready in time to be presented during the annual technology fair held by the National Association of Broadcasters in April in Las Vegas. This version of the standard allows new business opportunities and provides for mobile reception, an emergency alert system and UHDTV quality, among other functions. Unlike version 1.0, version 3.0 is also able to effectively penetrate indoor environments.
However, this intention of the USA was not successful; the group rather decided that the best way to move forward on the issue was to include the information of the USA in Recommendation ITU-R BT.1877 on error-correction, data framing, modulation and emission methods for the second generation of digital terrestrial TV broadcasting systems.
The revision of Recommendation ITU-R BT.1877 generated a great deal of discussion, specifically because there are various comparisons between ATSC 3.0 and DVB-T2 in the initial text proposed by the USA. Even though the USA reiterated several times that it did not want this matter to become a marketing war pitting ATSC 3.0 against DVB-T2, it ended up having to follow various suggestions and indications from other administrations, adjusting the texts and substantially reducing the information initially presented.
The rapporteur group associated to ATSC 3.0 will continue working to identify and appropriately amend all relevant documents to include information about this new standard.
Regarding spectrum sharing, there was also some debate about the 50-54 MHz band. Item 1.1 of the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) agenda considers a possible allocation of the 50-54 MHz band for amateur service in Region 1, in accordance with Resolution 658 (WRC-15).
This band is coveted by various services and in some countries of Eastern Europe and Asia it is still used by TV broadcasting services. Some administrations have already indicted that they intend to close analogue services in the upper part of the very high frequency (VHF) and ultra high frequency (UHF) bands. However, the operational status of relevant allocations in the lower part of the VHF band (band 1) is not known. For its part, Russia indicated that it has services operating in those bands, specifically the DRM+ system (or DRM120, based on the Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) system).
As occurred at the group’s first meeting last year, a report was received at this meeting which provided information about the progress of studies on spectrum sharing and compatibility between amateur, broadcasting, land mobile and radio-determination services.
WP 6A made some comments regarding the lengthy studies, specifically in section 8.2 of the report presented, whose suggested conclusion that “any harmful interference that occurs should be resolved via bilateral or multilateral agreements between neighbouring countries” is not to the liking of WP 6A, given that eventual harmful interference between amateur service and broadcasting service will most likely be intermittent, therefore making it very hard to identify the amateur service station causing the interference. WP 6A would like its comments to be included in the concluding section of the report in question.
Another pertinent matter during the meeting was the American administration’s sticking to its intention to harmonise spectrum, if possible globally, for services ancillary to programme making (SAP)/services ancillary to broadcasting (SAB) or equipment for programme making and special events (PMSE).
During this meeting, the USA reported the current state of the matter and indicated that the ITU would put up a webpage with a database containing information from each country on the bands used for those services and the licensing regimes, among other information. The Radiocommunication Bureau (BR) will accordingly soon ask for links and other information from all administrations; the USA requested that replies to the BR be kept short and sent right after the information requests arrive.
As manifested in the past, Portugal is totally ready to supply that information as soon as it receives the communication from the BR.
The next WP 6A meeting is scheduled for July 2019 in Geneva.
