COFDM vs. 8-VSB: The Fall of the ATSC Regime

THE FALL OF THE ATSC REGIME

Public disclosure of the secret ATSC RF Group Reports entitled 'Performance Assessment of the ATSC Transmission System, Equipment and Future Directions', Versions 4.2 and 4.3 is timely. Conclusions reached in the reports are highly germane to the future viability of over-the-air broadcasting in the United States and disclosure is in the consumer interest given the host of problems with the current US DTV system.

The analysis presented is a scholarly documentation of the practical problems besetting the 8VSB transmission system in real-world environments. However the analysis is conducted in a vacuum.

It is not set in the context of the competitive forces which over-the-air broadcasters face, the end-to-end economic analysis that facilitates strategic decision making, and the report makes scant acknowledgement of the formidable competition from the rival COFDM transmission standard. In FIVE competitive trials around the world in the period 1998-2000 the COFDM system has been selected by a diverse range of countries, on three continents, all over the globe in preference to ATSC/8VSB.

Overarching the technical analysis presented in these interim reports is the Broadcasters Requirements document. This was drawn up by the ATSC post-facto to the development of the ATSC standard by some FIVE years. Interestingly a comparison between the ATSC Broadcaster Requirements and the DVB-T/COFDM User Requirements drawn up BEFORE the DVB-T/COFDM system was finalized in 1997 reveal that the ATSC Broadcaster Requirements are a SUBSET of those requirements which have been operationally implemented in DVB-T/COFDM.

Another DTV system namely DVB-T/COFDM exists which is able to operationally fulfill those requirements TODAY. The broadcaster and consumer risk in adopting this system is minimal.

International competition from DVB-T/COFDM has rendered ATSC commercially, strategically and technically uncompetitive. This is due to a combination of poor specification, lack of flexibility, poor technologies, economically non-viable business models and a fundamental inability to make real structural and technical changes.

The latter can be attributed to the composition of the ATSC members, personal vanities, and a desire to secure IPR royalties. However the commercial failure of the ATSC system in its home market and its international rejection by other countries imply that IPR royalties to LG, the key 8VSB patentholder, are now probably worthless.

The ATSC RF Group documents acknowledge that major changes are needed noting that the 8VSB transmission standard, as is, cannot fix the reception problems.

Semi-compatible changes, that is, changes which could only benefit newer receivers MIGHT be possible. This would disenfranchise existing 8VSB receiver owners who could not benefit from the change. A semi-compatible strategy will also lead to an instant freeze on DTV receiver sales in the interim period. This is a matter which consumers should be made aware of.

Clearly an incompatible change would also freeze DTV receiver sales, currently estimated to be a minimal 50,000, and possibly require some sort of recompense program.

However there is no guarantee, despite a number of tentative technical proposals, that any of the proposed technical 'solutions' with WORK, BE ECONOMICALLY VIABLE, OR AVAILABLE IN COMPETITIVE TIMESCALES REQUIRED BY BROADCASTERS.

The ATSC now totters at the edge of a very steep digital cliff. The DTV system does not meet broadcasters minimum expectations, it is currently not possible to serve the Broadcasters Requirements, and the timescale for an economically viable fix, if it exists at all, is unknown.

Further as the report acknowledges the current ATSC system cannot support mobile DTV services, a major broadcaster requirement for 21st century digital terrestrial television, which makes it completely uncompetitive with DVB-T/COFDM.

The consequences flowing from the disclosure of this report, the events of the last year, and international developments are striking.
Internationally ATSC is dead and buried. The other five countries Argentina, Canada, Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan are either actively disengaging from ATSC or sitting safely on the sidelines.

Domestically ATSC DTV is a consumer flop. There is no chance of recovering spectrum for decades, the broadcasters are trying to disengage, and competitive digital television delivery systems are flourishing.

The change of US Administration terminates the sponsorship of the ATSC DTV strategy by one of its most powerful political supporters. It heralds an administration which will change the composition of the FCC, actively pursue a program to realize spectrum auction proceeds, and which is avowedly free market in its outlook.

This change of regime, coupled with ATSC's commercial and technical failures, means that a more free-market approach to DTV is now virtually inevitable.

Broadcasters, left to make their own free-market choice, between a DTV system that is fully commercialized and the ATSC system which is fundamentally disfunctional, will undoubtedly pick the commercially and technically viable system. Their survival as commercial enterprises will then depend solely on the construction of viable DTV business models, with technology risk minimised.

Given this set of circumstances, the change of political regime, the obvious commercial and market failure of ATSC DTV, the striking disclosures in these reports, the most likely future direction for the ATSC regime is commercial oblivion.


Kind Regards,

Dermot Nolan