3G Handset and Network Design

CHAPTER 19

3G Cellular/3G TV Software Integration

In this chapter we review the potential convergence between 3G TV networks and 3G cellular networks. We compare U.S. digital TV, and European and Asian DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) and DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) standards. The DAB and DVB standards provide an air interface capable of supporting mobility users, providing obvious opportunities for delivering commonality between cellular and TV applications. We point out that TV has plenty of downlink power but lacks uplink bandwidth (which cellular is able to provide). There are also commonalities at network level, given that both 3G cellular and 3G TV networks use ATM to move traffic to the broadcast transmitters (3G TV), and to and from the Node Bs, RNCs, and the core network in a 3G cellular network.

The DAB/DVB radio physical layer is based on a relatively complex frequency transform, which is hard to realize at present in a cellular handset transmitter (from a power efficiency and processor overhead perspective). We are therefore unlikely to see 3G cellular phones supporting a DVB radio physical layer on the uplink, but the phones could use the existing (W-CDMA or CDMA2000) air interface to deliver uplink bandwidth (subscriber-generated content). We will also look at parallel technologies (Web TV).

The Evolution of TV Technology

To date there have been three generations of TV technology (see Table 19.1):

Table 19.1 The Three Generations of TV

• The start of black-and-white ...