WiB A New System Concept for Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT)

Abstract

[EN] A new system concept for DTT, called WiB , is presented, where potentially all frequencies within the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band are used on all transmitter (Tx) sites (i.e. reuse-1). Interference, especially from neighbouring transmitters operating on the same frequency and transmitting different information, is handled by a combination of a robust transmission mode, directional discrimination of the receiving antenna and interference cancellation methods. With this approach DTT may be transmitted as a single wideband signal, covering potentially the entire UHF band, from a single wideband transmitter per transmitter site. Thanks to a higher spectrum utilisation the approach allows for a dramatic reduction in fundamental power/cost and about 37 - 60% capacity increase for the same coverage compared with current DTT. High speed mobile reception as well as fine granularity local services would also be supported, without loss of capacity. The paper also outlines further possible developments of WiB, e.g. doubling the capacity via cross polar MIMO, backward compatible with existing receiving antennas, and adding a second, WiB-Mobile, Layer Division Multiplexing (LDM) layer within the same spectrum, either as mobile broadcast or as mobile broadband.