The first meeting of the TG4 group was held last 15-17 January in Mainz, Germany, where the main goal was to begin preparing the first of the three reports it will have to produce, concerning aspects related to the possible digital dividend.
- This first report must be submitted to the Electronic Communications Committee (ECC) for its 26-30 March meeting, will basically focus on two issues: the problems of compatibility between digital terrestrial television broadcasting networks (DVB-T) for fixed reception (not very dense networks in terms of emitters) and networks for the mobile reception of multimedia services (very dense networks in terms of emitters); and the possibility of harmonising a sub-band in bands IV and V for the operation of networks for the mobile reception of multimedia services.
The work was carried out in two editing groups, with each drawing up the text concerning each of the issues. The results of the ITU 2006 Regional Radiocommunication Conference (RRC-06) were examined and it was verified that by far most of the eventual problems of compatibility between DVB-T networks for fixed reception and digital television broadcasting networks for mobile reception (DVB-H) are in France. A number (few) of other cases were identified, mainly along the borders of two countries.
Given this situation, the two groups' meeting were practically limited to trading arguments between France on the one hand and the rest of Europe on the other. With such different positions, the proposals prepared by each are still in a very early stage, as it is practically impossible to put together a sentence that achieves consensus in these circumstances. Note that France has indicated that it will very likely present a reservation to the final report.
Note also that this first report exclusively concerns networks that only downlink to receivers (DVB-H, MediaFlo, etc.) and that there is no mention whatsoever of mobile networks for two-way communications. Such networks will be examined in the second report, to be submitted to the ECC at its June meeting.
