ATSC and TDSI announce partnership for Next Gen broadcasting standards in India

The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) and Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI) has announced an agreement which will see the bodies collaborate on broadcasting standards for mobile.

The partnership enables TSDSI to adopt ATSC standards, with the bodies describing this as a promotion of “global harmonisation of digital broadcasting standards.” TDSI said that the partnership was a first step towards the development of Next Gen Broadcasting standards in its native India. 

In particular, mobile operators will be able to consider ATSC 3.0 adopted standards-based broadcast technologies to supplement their LTE/5G telecom deployments.

The announcement is a continuation of a partnership which was first established three years ago with a Memorandum of Understanding between TSDSI and ATSC and a jointly organised broadcast/broadband convergence conference in India.

ATSC Board Chairman Lynn Claudy, said: “The agreement with Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India is a significant accomplishment. This is a great opportunity to integrate ATSC 3.0’s state-of-the-art broadcast capabilities into the global telecoms ecosystem, especially given the massive size, scope and influence of India’s market and technological expertise.”

TSDSI Chair N G Subramaniam, said: “The agreement facilitates the adaptation of ATSC standards by TSDSI for India-specific use cases for live/linear broadcast and broadcast traffic offload. TSDSI developed a technical study report on Broadcast Traffic Offload in early 2020. 

“We have prioritised creation of a standard that will meet the requirements of the Indian market, which has the world’s highest consumption of mobile data per smartphone. 

“We not only want to address this largely dense urban situation but also optimise distribution bandwidth to India’s 895+ million rural population for entertainment, education and social welfare”.