India has over 1 billion mobile subscribers, over 200 million television homes.

The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and Sinclair Inc recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to “collaborate in the development of technology and standards in wireless broadcasting services over next-generation telecommunications and broadcast networks.”

Sinclair, a diversified media company and leading local television provider, said in a statement: “Research efforts will focus on improving the international ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) 3.0 wireless broadcast standard for a variety of television furniture, television and others. fixed applications that can benefit India and the world.”

The new capabilities of ATSC 3.0, they said, will advance “Broadcast-to-Everything (B2X) use cases to provide dynamic traffic management and rapid interworking with 5G networks, efficient use of spectrum, low-latency data broadcasting low, peak content delivery and improved battery. life for smartphones, feature phones, wearables and IoT devices.”

How will IIT Bombay contribute?

IIT Bombay will also contribute directly to the ongoing B2X rollout standardization work as a member of ATSC, Sinclair said.

“B2X will help relieve network congestion, provide high quality of service for competing and popular content, and promote sustainability. B2X further enhances Direct-to-Mobile (D2M), expanding the rollout in the IMT-2030 (6G) ecosystem,” they added.

India has over 1 billion mobile subscribers, over 200 million TV homes, high per capita mobile data consumption and proliferation of news, sports and other TV and radio channels.

In the long term, says Sinclair, “B2X will drive advances in emergency and disaster management, remote education and training, advanced agricultural techniques, increased satellite positioning and timing, vehicle communications, and open AI-based applications for broadcast and data dissemination’.

“Excited to partner”

Professor Shireesh Kedare, Director of IIT Bombay, said: “We are delighted to partner with Sinclair in transforming wireless telecommunications and to promote academic excellence, joint projects and joint development of intellectual property, including Make in India initiatives to drive B2X adoption in India. IIT Bombay’s mission to address the needs of society and the country at large and to develop technologies and products that improve the quality of life for both urban and rural populations.”

Chris Ripley, President and CEO, Sinclair, Inc, said, “We believe the collaboration with IIT Bombay is of the utmost importance in establishing ATSC 3.0-based B2X as the technology of choice for broadcast and multicast for various applications, not just in India, but ultimately across the globe, Sinclair is proud that IIT Bombay reinforces our fundamental role in advancing next generation broadcasting”.

Mark Aitken, Senior Vice President, Sinclair, Inc. and the guiding architect of the ATSC 3.0 standard, said: “ATSC 3.0’s high bandwidth efficiency and time and frequency interleaving features make it the undisputed best mobile transmission standard. ATSC 3.0 is also alone with the bootstrap ‘remove’ feature that makes it easy to introduce B2X release enhancements without disrupting the operation of previous releases.”

Madeleine Noland, President of the ATSC, said: “Telecom networks focus on unicast (one-to-one) communications, while B2X adds high-performance (one-to-many) ATSC 3.0 broadcast distribution, aligned with the mobile. ATSC applauds Sinclair. and IIT Bombay’s participation in B2X standards and technology development, which has the potential to revolutionize the efficiency of data distribution across multiple networks. IIT Bombay joins other world-class academic and research institutions as the newest member of ATSC.”

Shashi Shekhar Vempati, former Prasar Bharati CEO and member of the ATSC Business Advisory Board, said: “Brazil’s recent decision to adopt the ATSC 3.0 standard for broadcast services, based on extensive testing of multiple systems, paves the way for B2X to promote and more the resilience of broadcasting the standard for the greater public good. This collaboration furthers the development goals of a Viksit Bharat (Developed Bharat). conceived by Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.