Long term perspectives of TV convergence towards 5G: Mobile and fixed applications

The third generation partnership project (3GPP) has defined in Release 14 the new evolved version of Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service system, whose characteristics are well aligned to the technical requirements coming from the broadcast sector for TV services. This paves the way to allow broadcasters and content aggregators to deliver mobile TV content over cooperative broadcast high power high tower and mobile low power low tower network infrastructures, using a converging broadcast 3GPP technology. In a longer term perspective, in the 2020 decade, might this full-IP convergent technology become a candidate successor of DVB-T2 (ATSC or ISDB-T) also for digital terrestrial television home services? Is there a technical and business case for converging fixed and mobile TV on the same networks and technologies? The study investigates the performance of 3GPP Release 14 in theoretical, regular networks and in a real area around Turin (Italy), trying to give a technical background to answer the above strategic questions.