CEPT
ECC
Electronic Communications Committee
TG6(13)005
Task Group 6
ECC TG6 - M1
Copenhagen, 07 - 09 October 2013
Date issued:
30 September 2013
Source:
Digital Terrestrial Television Action Group - DigiTAG
Subject:
A long term vision for the UHF broadcasting band
Group membership required to read? (Y/N)
N
Summary:
The studies on the long term vision for the UHF broadcasting band need to take into account the
importance of the DTT market in Europe and its unique characteristics of free and universal
access to television.
The notion of convergence should be defined and substantiated prior to being considered in any
scenario for long term vision for the UHF band
Regulatory clarity and certainty are required for the DTT platform to evolve and innovate, and for
broadcasters, the associated industry, and the public to make the significant long term
investments into future technology and services. European spectrum policy should ensure that
DTT has sufficient spectrum to evolve and innovate.
Proposal:
The ECC TG6 is invited to consider this document when preparing the studies on a longterm vision for the UHF broadcasting band.
The studies on the long term vision for the UHF broadcasting band need to take into account the
importance of the DTT market in Europe and its unique characteristics of free and universal
access to television
Ensure certainty for the development of DTT by keeping the use of UHF band for DTT.
Background:
The DTT platform is the most successful television platform in Europe. With the digital switchover
process completed in most countries, it offers the highest number of national, regional and local
channels to all European citizens at the lower cost compared to other platforms.
Although consumption of non-linear TV is growing, it represents only a small percentage of the
total viewing time (7% compared to 93 % for linear viwing time), and this should remain for the
foreseable future.
The effects of the current considerations related to the 700 MHz for DTT services and their
capacity to innovate further are to be taken into account when questioning the future vision of the
UHF band below
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DigiTAG contribution to ECC TG6
07-09 October 2013
DigiTAG, Digital Terrestrial Television Action Group, is the only organisation that brings together
all stakeholders involved in the launch, rollout, implementation and evolution of the digital
terrestrial television platform (DTT). DigiTAG members represent 35 companies and
associations from around the world.
DigiTAG ’s mission is to promote and defend DTT on a worldwide basis bringing together
industry players to protect spectrum for broadcasting, regardless of the technical standard used
on the DTT platform. DigiTAG seeks to advance and safeguard the development of digital
terrestrial television. It encourages and aims to facilitate the introduction and implementation of
national DTT platforms regardless of the business model, regulatory regime or technology
adopted.
With this contribution DigiTAG wants to raise awareness of the importance and need for
terrestrial broadcasting as a service in Europe. The studies on the long term vision for the UHF
broadcasting band need to take this into account. DigiTAG will be contributing and following with
interest the work of ECC TG6.
The DTT market in Europe
Implementation of Digital Terrestrial Television has gone through all European countries and
analogue switch off has already been completed in most European countries (see Annex 1).
Although TV reception varies across European countries, DTT is the platform that has
experienced the strongest growth in the last few years and remains the most popular television
platform through which four out of ten households currently access TV in the EU1 (see Annex
2).
Despite the growth of non-linear TV (5% is Personal Video Recorder and 2% is online2), viewing
time of linear TV is about 4 hours/day and is increasing (93 % of content is watched live 3). With
DTT networks now delivering some 2000 TV channels, terrestrial distribution continues to
represent an important means of distributing linear TV.
According to the Mavise Database (see press release of March 2013), at the end of 2012, the
number of channels available on DTT networks in the EU Member States included the following:
456 free national or international channels; 529 pay channels, and more than 1000 local and
regional channels.
1 Special EuroBarometer 396, e-Communications Household Survey (requested by European Commission, DG
Connect), August 2013. https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/special-eurobarometer-396-e-communicationshousehold-survey
2 For on-demand (nonlinear) viewing it is to be noted that 80-90% of Android smart phone and tablet mobile traffic is
already being off-loaded to private Wi-Fi, e.g. within the end-user’s home, mobile broadband networks accounts for
only 10-20 %, especially for long media formats (see 'Impact of traffic offloading and related technological trends on
the demand for wireless broadband spectrum' Report for the EC by Wik Consult and Aegis). A recent European
Commission study found that 71% of all wireless data traffic delivered in 2012 to smartphones and tablets in the EU
was delivered using Wi-Fi, possibly rising to 78% by 2016.
3 Source: IHS – ScreenDigest: Cross-platform Television Viewing Time FY 2012. It indicates % of daily viewing per
person (average in EU big 5).
In countries with the most advanced markets, DTT today offers more than 50 national TV
channels and, additionally, a large number of local and regional services that alternative
platforms cannot replicate.
Consumers and the terrestrial broadcast industry have made substantial investments to switch
over from analogue television to DTT. In terms of DTT receivers, more than 200 million of DTT
enabled receivers have been sold in Europe and DTT networks deployed cover 95-99% of the
population.
DTT in continuous evolution and innovation
As of today, many HDTV services are available in the DTT platform and first experiences to
introduce UHDTV and 3DTV services in the future have been done.
According to the Mavise Database (see press release of March 2013), 'there is increasing
availability of high definition services (HDTV) on DTT platforms. Whereas at the end of 2009,
HDTV was only available in two countries (France and the United Kingdom), at the end of 2012
there were HD channels on the DTT platforms in twenty-two European countries offering a
combined total of more than 90 national DTT channels and 25 regional windows. Six new freeto-air HD channels were launched in France at the end of 2012'.
The broadcast industry is also at the forefront of the development of hybrid TV systems such as
HbbTV, Youview, MHEG-5 and MHP which offer consumers the possibility to access
audiovisual content available in both broadcast and broadband platforms. For broadcasters with
strong linear offerings hybrid systems offers the possibility to greatly enhance the viewing
experience and therefore to increase the visibility in the market of their linear services. However,
VOD services represent only a small percentage of the total viewing time, and this should
remain for the foreseable future, as shown in the figure in Annex 4 which illustrates recent
projections from Screen Digest on the proportion of linear and non-linear TV consumption for
the EU ‘Big 5’ countries.In terms of standards, the second generation for digital television, DVBT2, offers significant benefits with higher spectral efficiency, but also with new features (like
Multiple Physical Layer Pipes, time-frequency slicing, SFN extension, MISO) to improve the
coverage or to reach portable devices such as handheld devices. DVB-T2 has already been
introduced in some European countries and others are planning to do so.
Spectrum requirements for DTT
Terrestrial television has been harmonised worldwide within the UHF band 470-862 MHz. In the
EU the 790-862 MHz band (the '800 MHz' band) has been harmonised for mobile services and
the clearance process of broadcasting services is underway. The WRC-15 will introduce the
allocation of the 694-790 MHz band (the '700 MHz' band) to mobile services; a few European
countries have already announced that the 700 MHz band will be cleared from broadcasting
services and be used by mobile services.
The UHF spectrum below 1 GHz is the only spectrum available for the evolution of DTT platform
in some countries. Even where the VHF Band III is available for DTT, it is often shared with
digital radio broadcasting or other (non-broadcasting) services.
Enabling the release of the 800 MHz band results in an intensive use of the remaining 470 - 790
MHz spectrum band. Further releases will require a complete change of the frequency planning
including very significant infrastructure investment decisions. This is in contrast with responses
to the RSPG survey and to the recent questionnaire on spectrum requirements for DTT
conducted by the ITU-R Working Party 6A which clearly indicate that spectrum requirements for
DTT are not likely to decrease in the future.
The introduction of more spectrum efficient technologies, such as DVB-T2, or more efficient
compression algorithms, such as MPEG-4 or H.265/AVC in the future, are not expected to
reduce the spectrum requirements because they will come with additional HDTV and new
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UHDTV services which require larger amounts of spectrum than standard definition television
programmes.
Economic and social value of DTT
DTT brings significant benefits to European consumers and citizens and makes a substantial
economic contribution to the European market. It provides consumers with free and universal
access to a large number of national, regional and local TV programmes, promoting culture and
social inclusion.
Across European countries the DTT industry highly contributes to the generation of broadcaster
revenues and employment. In addition, annual content investment is supported by DTT, of
which part is dedicated to supporting the content industry within the domestic economies.
DigiTAG understanding of the context of the creation of TG6
It is DigiTAG view that the main origin of opening consideration of a possible need for a long
term strategy related to the whole UHF band lies in assumption of potential interest of
convergence of broadcast and mobile broadband networks
But so far the notion of convergence has neither been substantiated nor demonstrated to be
practical. Further, a number of Administrations have indicated that the UHF band should be
retained for DTT when responding to previous ITU and RSPG questionnaires.
Therefore, before consideration of any scenario for the development of the band, it appears that
the first key question should be to define and describe what is meant by convergence, and to
evaluate the potential interest or lack of interest of such a concept, taking into account technical,
economical and societal aspects all together, and the spectrum needs for DTT as expressed
above
Conclusions
The DTT platform is now the most successful television platform in Europe. With the digital
switchover process completed in most countries, it offers the highest number of national,
regional and local channels to all European citizens at the lower cost compared to other
platforms.
The studies on the long term vision for the UHF broadcasting band need to take into account
the importance of the DTT market in Europe and its unique characteristics of free and universal
access to television.
The notion of convergence should be defined and substantiated prior to being considered in any
scenario for long term vision for the UHF band
Regulatory clarity and certainty are required for the DTT platform to evolve and innovate, and
for broadcasters, the associated industry, and the public to make the significant long term
investments into future technology and services. European spectrum policy should ensure that
DTT has sufficient spectrum to evolve and innovate.
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Annex 1: Status analogue switch off
Source: DigiTAG
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Annex 2: TV Reception in the EU
Source: Special EuroBarometer 396, e-Communications Household Survey (requested by
European Commission, DG Connect), August 2013. https://ec.europa.eu/digitalagenda/en/news/special-eurobarometer-396-e-communications-household-survey
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Annex 3: Channels on DTT networks (Free-to-air and Pay)
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Annex 4: Evolution of linear and non-linear TV consumption
for the EU ‘Big 5’ countries
Source: IHS – ScreenDigest: Cross-platform Television Viewing Time FY 2012
Note: Forecast from 2012 // * 2020 forecast by EBU
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