I did not have chance to personally meet with Mr. Aytaç Biber who is working at Qualcomm as Director of Product Management, but with the help of IBC 2022, we managed to know each other. I prepared the questions with my collegue Mr. Halil US.   I appriciate for the answers of Mr. Biber, hope you enyoj the interview.   Q1. Can you please tell us your 5G solution. 5G broadcast is a new media delivery framework defined by 3GPP standardization body. It defines two modes of communication: 1- Standalone broadcast where a dedicated broadcasting network such as a single frequency network (SFN) is used for downlink broadcast . This could be live distribution of mass media content such as digital TV, live sports and digital advertisement content for billboards. This would be more tailored towards traditional broadcasters. 2- Mixed mode broadcast where low power , low tower networks could be used in hybrid mode with media client switching between unicast and broadcast for more effici...

There is a saying in Turkish. If I try to translate it, I guess it is something like this: "Everyone describes an elephand depending on where he/she grabs." I believe there is also one in English which has similiar meaning, I would be glad if you can share that in the comments. I have been working in broadcast since 1998 and worked on digital terrestrial broadcast since 2003. So, the my main interest was DTT again. But this time not DAB+ / DRM+ nor DVB-T2. My main point of interest was 5G Broadcast.  There was actually one single company which was demonstrating 5G broadcast, namely Rohde & Schwarz. They were doing the demonstration with the receivers which have chipsets from Qualcomm. So this demonstration was in a way the demo of R&S and Qualcomm. But I had the chance to talk to other big transmitter companies. The advance of IBC is that you can find top level executives to talk with on the subjects that you are interested in. So these guys told me that even though t...

To be honest, I do not know the answer of the question: What will 5G bring to broadcasting? But, with the help of some documents, I will try to comment on this. It would be great if you also can share your opinions. "Broadcast", "unicast" and "multicast" are different ways of connection. Visualization is always better way of explaining: As you can see in the figure above, Unicast is point to single   point connection; Broadcast is point to all connection; Multicast is point to many points connection.  In broadcast connections, quality does not depend on the number of receiving units. So for serving same data to crowded receipents some kind of broadcast network should be used.  Mobile networks were providing unicast connections, i.e. from the base station to the receiver. Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service ( MBMS ) is a broadcast/multicast service in mobile networks, which is available since 2009 . But it has not been common...

According to the news in the web site of EBU, 470 - 694 MHz will be reserved for DTT & radio microphones not only till WRC 2019, but also till WRC 2023. At the WRC 2023, 470 - 960 MHz band will be reconsidered. It is good news for the DTT business in Europe. But is it a good news for Turkey? As you may well know, Turkey has not yet spend any money on DTT. There is no DTT network, nor a finished frequency allocation tender. Hence, we can say that there is nothing, just NOTHING regarding DTT.  So, in best circumstances, the tender for DTT frequencies can be finished by 2016 & the network would be ready by 2017. Well, the picture becomes interesting from that point. The frequency allocation would be for 10 years, which covers 2016-2026. But, during the WRC 2023, the frequency usage will be reconsidered again. It may be more meaningful to think not to build DTT at all, and start thinking to work on xG mobile networks. I would appreciate for your comment...

You probably know that WRC 2015, is going to start in 2 weeks. There will be debate on the use of 470-694 MHz. The European public broadcasters, and the organization of the public broadcasters, namely European Broadcasting Union, EBU are trying to secure the rest of UHF band for terrestrial broadcasting.  For the ones out of broadcasting, the frequency band can be thought as the road for the automobiles. When the road is wider, you can put more cars on it. If you squeeze the cars, then it is OK for you to live with a narrower road. That's exactly what happened when the terrestrial television went through the digital transmission. The size of the cars, the bandwidth needed for a TV channel, has went down. Hence, the whole UHF band for analogue TV transmission is more then enough. On the other hand, there was a increasing demand of bandwidth in mobile networks. This demand, caused the release of 800 MHz band to mobile.  With the developments in the encoding techn...

This is the most common question I am facing: What is the situation about DTT? Actually I do not know. So you may ask, why are you writing this? Let me try to explain: According to the WRC 2006, we (I mean Turkey) should switch off its analogue terrestrial television transmitters this summer. But we did not. According to Act 6112, we (I again mean Turkey) should complete the frequency allocation tender process. But we did not. According to the Head of Supreme Council at the time of 2006, we (I, for the third time, mean Turkey) in three years time ASO would be completed. But it did not. Above I listed the THINGS that have to be DONE but did not.  Now, lets look what we (I will not write you I mean, but I guess you got it) DID: Assign the 800 MHz to the mobile world for 4.5 G. Do not ask what the 4.5G is, or do not ask me :) From an email I got from the CTO of ANTEN AS, with a decision to downsize the company, I mean ANTEN AS, the only network operator in Turkey f...

As I wrote before, with the recent speech of Mr. Esat ÇIPLAK, one of the members of RTÜK, the Supreme Council for radio & television, there is a new debate on DTT in Turkey. I believe Turkey is the only country with "completely none" DTT investment in Europe. This uniqueness, may open a window of opportunity to Turkey, giving him the chance to dedicate UHF band directly to mobile, without the need to wait for the diminish of DTT.  I have to admit that when I first read the speech of Mr. ÇIPLAK, I thought that the offer was quite meaningless. He claimed that LTE-B was enough for DTT, which has never installed in a country. Actually after searching about the technology I realized that the offer of giving all UHF band to mobile operators is not an invention. It has been talked by the mobile world quite a while. I read a presentation by Nokia Networks in March 2015, in which the future of UHF band is shown as LTE.  I believe this debate has the potential to cha...

I have been using LinkedIn frequently. I post some updates on DTT and digital radio transition in Turkey. I found out that there are not enough source of information on these subjects. So, although it is extra work for me, I try to post my comments on these in English also.  Recently Mr. Esat ÇIPLAK, gave a speech on DTT transition in Turkey. He is one of the members of Supreme Council of Radio & Television in Turkey, namely RTÜK. There are nine members of RTÜK. Mr. ÇIPLAK claims that there is no need to build a new DTT network as there are very little percentage left watching analog terrestrial television. According to Mr. ÇIPLAK, even in Europe percentage of population watching television via DTT is decreasing. As you well know, Turkey has not yet build DTT. So, Mr. ÇIPLAK claims that the UHF band should be released to mobile operators. Mobile operators will use the frequency band more efficient.  I posted a comment on these in my blog in Turkish. Thinking of ...

It has been quite a while since my last post. Unfortunately reason for this is not me. After three major election in two years time, I hope that some progress will happen. The only news to announce is that some changes have been made in the Act of RTUK. With these changes RTUK has the right to organise a new tender for DTT frequencies. In the digital radio side things are more complicated. FM frequencies have not tendered yet. FM broadcasters are waiting for a FM frequency tender, which will cause new problems. There are more than 100, yes hundred, FM radio stations in İstanbul. After a tender nearly half of these will loose their frequency. DAB/DRM battle is continuing in which DAB seems to be more lucky.

DigiTAG, which is established to promote digital terrestrial television broadcasting, will organize a  workshop   in Istanbul on 14 and 15 November 2013 .   This event, which will take place at the Radisson Blue, is extremely important.   There are several reasons for the importance of course: When we look at the  members  of DigiTAG we see broadcasters, network operators (such as Anten AS in Turkey), manufacturers and regulatory / supervisory institutions. In short, we are talking about an organization formed by all actors of the DTT (digital terrestrial television) world. A workshop organized by this structure, will gather the most important names of the sector. Under normal conditions, the names that will not come together easily, will give presentation in Istanbul  with the call of DigiTAG. Digital terrestrial television in many countries in Europe, has become a fact of life. Analog switch off has been made by most of the...

For more than 10 years I am attending TV Conferences in Istanbul. Name of the event was Cebit Broadcast Cable & Satellite Fair & Conference. I presented papers at this event two times in different years. By the time this event is combined with Cebit IT and conference part of the event disappeared totally. I am very glad to see that RATEM organized a special event for TV sector in Turkey. I should mention that iTVF is not just about technical part of TV. It is also an event to meet content owners with international sales firms. It can be thought as a combination of Mippcom & IBC. But of course it is just a small version of both events. At least for this year. There were two day discussions on digital TV and digital radio. It may sound unbelievable but in Turkey digital terrestrial television network is not yet constructed. In nearly all European countries DTT network is built, and again in many Analog has been switched off. We are a little bit late for both and time...

It a pleasure for me to announce the  Istanbul Forum & Fair , at 20-22 June 2013. I am mainly interested in the  Forum  of the event. It seems that although there is a short time left, program of the event is not yet finalized. I found program of day 1 & 2 in the Facebook account of the event. As you can see, it is an important event, looking at the names of the speakers. Turkey is a huge market for DVB-T2 and digital radio. Throughout Europe there are a few countries left, without DTT network at all. So main producers of DTT network equipment will come to Istanbul to show their products. Also with over 70 Million people, who watched nearly 4 hours of TV daily, TV production is important.  I, personally, try to attend the event on 20 & 21 June. I hope to meet my readers there. If you will attend the event also, you can send me a message through LinkedIn . 

Although nearly all countries throughout European has completed analog switch off, Turkey has not yet build Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) network. First tender will be next week for licensees of national coverage. Regional and local coverage licensees will follow national. Analog terrestrial is said to continue till March 2015. In this post I will try to figure out the affects of this process on TV market in Turkey. In Turkey cable has a limited network and hence has a little market share. App. there is %8-10 of households receive tv from cable (analog + digital). There is only one cable operator, TURKSAT , which is %100 state owned and operates not only cable but also satellite. TURK TELEKOM , which was previously the telecommunication monopoly of Turkey, has IPTV offer, namely TIVIBU . TIVIBU has not yet reach an important number of customers in market but is growing rapidly. DIGITURK and DSMART are two satellite platforms both of which has also three...

As you all know analog switch off (ASO) is the process of ending analog terrestrial television broadcast and start digital terrestrial television (DTT) instead through out the whole country. In many European countries this process is done. In Turkey ASO will be on 3 March 2015. DTT has not yet started and I believe that 2 years of transition period is an extremely tight target. We will wait and see if the target is reached or not. Main advantage of Turkey is that television reception depends on satellite. Total percentage of households which receive television from analog terrestrial broadcast is just 20 % or less. Thus, number of people that will be effected from ASO is not as high as the ones in other European countries.  In countries where analog terrestrial broadcast is not dominant, transition period is not so long. This will help the ASO process of Turkey.  It is stated in the law that the DTT network will be built by a firm, shortly called as Antenna A.Ş . Share ...

First of all I would like to mention that you can be sure that what you read in this blog is not copied from somewhere else. They are personally written by me. I am working as an R & D Engineer in Turkey. After graduated from electrical & electronics engineering department in 1995 I am working in television industry since 1998. I am blogging since 2004. I wrote 950+ posts , 125+ of which are technical . I am blogging in Turkish. You can read them using online translator of google, keeping in mind that online tools are not so  powerful in translating from Turkish. This is my first post in English. I hope to be a reference site for the television technology of Turkey. Television market in Turkey differs from other European countries in some aspects. For example in Turkey nearly 70 % of households receive television from satellite. Cable, digital & analog, is just 8 %. Digital terrestrial television (DTT) is not yet started. DTT is planned to start with DVB-T2. ...