Digital Dividend

Abstract

Due to the switchover from analog terrestrial television to digital terrestrial television (DVB-T) in Europe, much fewer frequencies are needed for propagating the same number of programs since DVB-T can accommodate at least 4 SDTV programs per channel. At the last World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC07, Geneva, October/November 2007), the upper TV channels 61–69 (790–862 MHz) were therefore reserved for mobile radio applications (UMTS, LTE, 5G) under the heading of “Digital Dividend”. Naturally, this has effects on applications operating in the same frequency band like DVB-T-broadcasts in these channels, but also broadband cable networks using the full frequency band from 5 to 862 MHz. The effects differ and have now also been verified in practice by trials. The author was actively involved in some of the first investigations. In the following sections, the influences of the use by mobile radio of channels 61–69 (“Digital Dividend I”, 800 MHz band) and channels 50–60 (“Digital Dividend II”, 700 MHz band) on DVB-T/T2 networks and on broadband cable networks will be discussed.