Scenarios for Co-Existence of Digital TV and 5G Broadcast Services in UHF Band

Transition to Digital Television (DTV) provides opportunities to release upper part of DTV UHF band for new types of wireless services. 5G Broadcast and Multicast systems are possible options for using this spectrum for providing new types of services to mobile devices. LTE-based 5G terrestrial broadcast system and 5G New Radio Multicast Broadcast Services are already included in 3GPP specifications, but deployment of these systems needs coordination with existing DTV frequency band plans. This paper considers a number of scenarios for co-existence of DTV and 5G Broadcast services in UHF band. Analysis and comparison of scenarios shows that typical use of 5G Broadcast blocks within 8 MHz DTV channels is not quite efficient. Almost 100 % use of spectrum may be provided by DTV channel bonding, UHF band segmentation and use of 8 MHz 5G Broadcast bandwidth considered in 3GPP Release 17. For 700 MHz band a possible option is use of Supplemental Downlink (SDL) sub-band (738–758 MHz). All these approaches need considerable work on re-arrangement of DTV channels and UHF band planning. UHF band segmentation and use of SDL may provide considerable parts of UHF spectrum to 5G Broadcast and Multicast services with minimal interference to DTV channels. Use of spectrally efficient signals may provide new types of wireless services in UHF band in the future.