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GATESAIR
The IBC2014 show marks the first integrated demonstration by GatesAir of LTE Mobile Offload, a unique model for supplementing capacity for live TV and other popular video services for bandwidthconstrained mobile networks. The advanced model benefits both broadcast and mobile operators, maximizing the use of spectrum and cultivating new revenue models and business relationships; and reducing costs, expanding reach and preserving bandwidth. Broadcasters benefit from a new way to increase viewership and monetize spectrum given the rapidly growing number of consumer mobile devices in use worldwide. In addition to overcoming previous barriers to HD video delivery over mobile devices, LTE Mobile Offload allows broadcasters to reach a highly nomadic viewing audience with existing standards and technology. Mobile network operators benefit by offloading video content to High Tower High Power (HTHP) transmitters from GatesAir, ensuring a seamless user experience for consumers through optimal spectrum utilization. Importantly, the groundbreaking initiative is developing at a time when UHF spectrum is in high demand for wireless broadband use
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worldwide. Once commercialized, broadcast network operators could leverage their existing spectrum to simultaneously deliver fixed and mobile services over-the-air. GatesAir is working with the Technical University of Braunschweig to commercialize the technology. “LTE Mobile Offload represents a breakthrough opportunity for sharing wireless spectrum, and we see it as a natural progression of UHF broadcasting,” said Rich Redmond, chief product officer, GatesAir. “Broadcasters, network operators and mobile service providers can reap a common benefit with this model. The advanced architecture of LTE Mobile Offload boils down to spectrum efficiency and the lowest cost means of delivering video content to larger audiences. The use of wireless spectrum no longer has to
be an either/or proposition. We are empowering our customers to take advantage of consumer trends and a quickly evolving market.” LTE Mobile Offload is proven to work using the DVB-T2 broadcast standard today. DVB-T2 includes Future Extension Frames (FEFs), which support the delivery of nonDVB-T2 signals inside the data stream. This opens a lane inside the DVB-T2 standard to deliver the signal type (LTE-A+) that 3GPP-capable mobile devices can receive and play outas video. Similar possibilities exist for incorporation into ATSC 3.0 and other digital TV standards. The GatesAir solution modulates the DVB-T2 and LTE-A+ signals, using a hybrid exciter platform and overthe-air transmitters to deliver simultaneous digital TV and LTE content to all devices from a broadcast tower.