DVB-T Frequency spectrum digital television

The UHF spectrum, 470-806 MHz, is a valuable spectrum, not only for television services but also upcoming mobile broadband services. The upper part of the band, 698-806 MHz, is seen as the ‘Digital Dividend’ part and is already being used for LTE mobile broadband services in the United States. The need for more spectrum is high, especially in the lower bands with good coverage like UHF. In the Unites Stated the FCC is planning to scrape 120 MHz off the UHF band for spectrum efficiency in the digital television market and assign it to mobile broadband. Also other parties and applications, and experiments with White Spaces, want to use this band.

In Curacao there is no scarcity in the UHF band yet, but still must use the spectrum efficiently. The DVB-T standard provides big efficiency and quality improvements. The space of one analogueue television channel can be used for 6-10 digital channels. The newer DVB-T2 standard adds up to this and is even more efficient and provides even more quality improvements. In the future, a further extension to DVB-T2 is therefore a logical step. DVB-T is now even being considered as the next standard for ATSC 3.0 in the United States.

From a technical viewpoint, it is essential that the transmitters in the DVB-T network are one the same locations. The whole network architecture and configuration is described in a technical policy document DVB-T Implementation Plan: Transmission system.
In many countries a single digital broadcast infrastructure is developed, also from the viewpoint of cost efficiency. This requires a different approach on television broadcast authorizations where the production of program content and technical distribution of channels are split. The technical infrastructure of broadcasting will be a ‘shared infrastructure’, which all broadcasters/program content providers can use. Possible constructions for a shared broadcast infrastructure are drawn in the document DVB-T Network Tender: Information, planning and procedures.

(BT&P publication period: 2013)