First LTE-A+ Broadcast pilot project in France to Italy

The objective is to study the possibilities of an ecosystem with LTE technology, on the one hand, and a traditional DVB infrastructure, on the other.

French network operator TDF and Italian public broadcaster RAI have launched a series of field tests using the new LTE-A+ Broadcast converged mobile transmission system.

The project has been developed by Ulrich Reimers (Technische Universität Braunschweig) in collaboration with the German IRT institute, together with Expway and GatesAir.

The objective is to study the possibilities of an ecosystem with LTE technology, on the one hand, and a traditional DVB infrastructure, on the other.

To do this, two data streams are being broadcast sharing the same UHF channel in time division: one stream broadcasts digital channels in high definition being received on DVB-T2 televisions, while a second stream is intended for devices such as laptops, smartphones or tablets with 4G LTE-A+ connectivity.

The pilot, developed on an overlay tower model, is demonstrating the use of the DVB-T2 broadcast standard, including Future Extension Frames (FEFs), with support for delivery of non-DVB-T2 signals within the data stream. This opens a new path within the DVB-T2 standard to deliver a type of signal (LTE-A+) that 3GPP-capable mobile devices can receive and decode as video.