IMB is a technology that enables spectrally-efficient delivery of broadcast services, based on techniques that are greatly aligned with existing FDD WCDMA, but also allowing deployment in TDD spectrum. This allows for the smooth handover between IMB delivery and existing deployed technology.
Operators can use IMB within segments of spectrum already allocated with many 3G licenses, but which have remained unused due to a lack of appropriate technology. Since IMB meets the necessary regulatory and spectral requirements to be deployed in this spectrum, operators can now use this valuable but previously untapped asset. IMB also reuses many aspects of existing, deployed technologies such as UMTS and Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS), meaning a short development cycle for inclusion on products resulting in a faster time to market for mobile broadcast services such as mobile TV.
“IMB has been created through collaborative mobile industry effort and offers mobile operators an opportunity to launch new services to their customers,” said Alex Sinclair, chief technology officer at the GSMA. “The GSMA is delighted to be endorsing this technology and we look forward to seeing the advanced services the mobile operator community will deploy using this flexible new mobile broadcast standard.”
The GSMA also collaborated with leading operators such as Orange, SingTel, Softbank, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone to create a white paper on this new standard. The GSMA IMB Service Scenarios and System Requirements white paper covers the technology in greater detail, including spectral requirements for deployment of the service, capabilities that are required to be supported in the operator’s network and upon devices, and a range of examples of services that could be implemented using IMB as the underlying delivery technology.
In combination with 3GPP specifications, the white paper will allow infrastructure and handset manufacturers to develop common implementations of IMB, which in turn will promote mass adoption through the generation of economies of scale and an IMB ecosystem.