Multiple production-grade deployments of ATSC 3.0 datacasting use cases have launched in the past year across the U.S. These deployments demonstrate the value of one-to-many IP data delivery, prove the marketplace need, and are greatly enhanced with ATSC 3.0 adoption. This presentation will provide a technical overview, performance metrics, business opportunities, and lessons learned from those deployments, which include the largest digital broadcast remote education programs in the United States and multiple public safety datacasting service implementations. We also discuss implications, motivations, and opportunities for supporting transition from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0 to better support these use cases.
Remote learning education use cases have been growing for several years as educational technology is deployed in schools and student homes. A growing digital divide has impacted many students without access to adequate broadband in their homes. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically amplified the inequities faced by those students. ATSC 3.0 datacasting has allowed broadcasters to rapidly and cost-effectively deploy services and low-cost ATSC 3.0 receivers to support at-home learners in areas without functional broadband access. The presentation will cover multiple deployments across the country that use tens of thousands of ATSC 3.0 data receivers in student households.
Datacasting has been used to support first responders and public safety use cases since the original DTV transition. Available services include delivery of live, streaming video content (e.g., drone video, helicopter video, on-scene incident response from first responders, traffic cameras, surveillance cameras, etc.) as well as file-based content (e.g., images, floor plans, documents, weather maps, evacuation routes, training materials, etc.). All content can be securely targeted to individuals or groups over the broad coverage areas reached by digital television transmissions, and cannot be viewed by non-authorized users. Datacasting in ATSC 3.0 provides a separate additive network that both interoperates with other networks via IP, and still works to deliver one-to-many content even when other infrastructure is compromised.