LTE-Broadcast has broad deployment models. What it doesn't have is the iPhone

LTE-Broadcast is poised for mass adoption at last, claims the Alliance which was set up last April to promote it. The Alliance aims to make a splash at next month’s Mobile World Congress, to boost operator confidence in the mobile TV standard and outline some of its use cases beyond the consumer TV sector. For instance, the UK …

[Steve Davies 3]

Does the fault only lie with Apple?

Isn't all this done on the Chipset provided by the likes of Qualcomm?

Is this bit of tech covered by FRAND?

If not then good luck getting the tightwads at Apple to pay through the nose for it.

Perhaps they should forget the iPhone anyway as isn't perceived as Meh! these days.

Wouldn't Samsung be a better bet to get this into the hands of the masses?

[JetSetJim]

Re: Does the fault only lie with Apple?

If it's mandated by the standards, and was invented after they came up with the FRAND concept, then it will be available on FRAND terms. Perhaps not the FRAND terms Apple demand, but FRAND nonetheless. Apple currently re-suing Nokia for something akin to FRAND abuse.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Does the fault only lie with Apple?

From what I can tell of Qualcomm's offerings, it seems likely that LTE-B is supported in the chips the last couple iPhone generations have in them. It would need to be supported on the software side by Apple, and if there are extra royalties for it (which is likely) then Apple would have to pay for it. Why would they want to pay for something that no one is using, and no one is demanding?

Apple has never been aggressive in supporting new wireless standards, the only times they are aggressive in supporting new standards (i.e. Bluetooth LE) is when they are making use of it directly. If it isn't something they are using (they have no need for the "operators broadcasting software updates" feature) then why should they spend money on licensing and development to enable a feature no one wants right now aside from an industry association trying to drum up licensing revenue for its membership?

While I can see some uses for LTE-B especially when cars start becoming 'connected', there is still a lot of "solution looking for a problem" around its use cases. Where is the groundswell of people itching to watch live TV and sit through tons of commercials on a phone?

[paulf]

Re: Does the fault only lie with Apple?

@DougS "Where is the groundswell of people itching to watch live TV and sit through tons of commercials on a phone?"

Surely the answer to that is "It doesn't exist!" and the death of DVB-H many (many!) years ago is testament to it.

It's possible to stream live TV on a phone if you want (e.g. BBC iPlayer) so all LTE-B does is save the operators a load of bandwidth in sending the same stuff to multiple handsets. People mostly don't care how their bits are delivered so it would be down to the MNOs to push for LTE-B as they're the primary beneficiaries. Anyway an area with small LTE microcells suggests the chances of enough multiple handsets on one cell wanting the same "broadcast" is pretty small.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the story: “Many of the issues have been resolved, and operators, network equipment providers, middleware, chipset and device vendors now know what is required.”

I see no mobile device vendors apart from Huawei — which I suspect is much more interested in peddling network equipment — among the Alliance's members. And the only chip vendor is Qualcom. If Qualcom has indeed been shaking Apple down, Apple's not about to lead the charge into a technology for which Qualcom is the gatekeeper, even if the Alliance's many network provider members are hot for it. (Apple's consumer-friendly policy on iPhone updates is an earlier example of it staring down network providers.)

[Mage]

Why LTE Broadcast when DVB-T2 exists?

The plan is to sell off ALL TV spectrum (Ofcom and Comreg have admitted this).

Then Mobile operators will be PayTV operators.

LTE broadcast is ultimately PayTV for Mobile Operators. We don't need it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why LTE Broadcast when DVB-T2 exists?

And mobile TV is advertised as one of the big reasons to go with the non backwards compatible ATSC 3.0 in the US. Personally I think mobile TV is something that is simply not being demanded, but the TV station owners and networks keep hoping for it because they have a dream of selling undefined "enhanced services" on subchannels.

[Bryan Hall]

It makes sense, so it probably won't happen.

So - somewhat like multicast over Ethernet?

It just makes sense to send (broadcast) once - or at least once per target resolution, and then receive wherever instead of supporting millions of individual streams for live events.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It makes sense, so it probably won't happen.

The question is, why do broadcast specific to LTE? What stops your phone from receiving multicast IP packets with 3G or anything else as the transport? Nothing, except the lack of revenue stream to Qualcomm and other patent holders!

[Peter 39]

SSDD - users pay, carriers save

I'm sure the carriers want to push broadcast. That'll save them shedloads in infrastructure at high-demand areas (such as sporting events).

But punters will still be charged full whack for each byte.