Four of the country’s largest television broadcast station owners have banded together to launch a new wireless datacasting service.
The service, called EdgeBeam Wireless, utilizes spectrum set aside for ATSC 3.0 television broadcasting (also known by the consumer name NextGen TV) to deliver one-way data transmission capabilities.
The broadcasters — Nexstar Media Group; the E. W. Scripps Company; Sinclair, Inc.; and the E. W. Scripps Company — announced the launch of EdgeBeam Wireless at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
Some of the capabilities of EdgeBeam Wireless include giving automakers a broad ability to push out software updates to their vehicles in a given geographic region, provide more-reliable content delivery networks for video streaming services that improves upon the viewer experience “without buffering or lag,” and enhance the reliability and accuracy of global positioning system (GPS) services.
“EdgeBeam will be able to deliver data across the country to any civilian or military device with an ATSC 3.0 receiver, such as cars and trucks, drones, marine vessels, phones, tablets, and television sets,” the companies said in a statement on Monday. “This partnership creates a spectrum footprint that no individual broadcaster could achieve on its own, unlocking the potential of ATSC 3.0 to offer nationwide coverage for data delivery to billions of potential devices on market-disrupting terms.”
The companies say they anticipate partnering with other broadcasters “for additional capacity to offer truly nationwide services.”
“The launch of EdgeBeam Wireless is the culmination of many years of technological advancement, market development and, importantly, recognition by government regulators of the expanded services local broadcasters can provide through ATSC 3.0 technology,” said Adam Symson, the President and CEO of Scripps. “Scripps is pleased to join forces with its peer companies to create not just a new company but a marketplace that will allow us to more deeply serve our local communities while providing a wide variety of industries with efficient data-transmission services nationwide.”
Chris Ripley, the President and CEO of Sinclair, called the formation of EdgeBeam Wireless “a groundbreaking development for the broadcasting industry.”
“We’re thrilled to partner with other leaders in our industry to chart a new path forward and develop new revenue opportunities,” Ripley said in a statement. “EdgeBeam Wireless will have benefits for the entire wireless ecosystem, helping to relieve congestion while also offering competitive pricing for wide-area data distribution.”
“Our long-held belief is that the transmission of high-speed data via our broadcast infrastructure represents a new way forward for the broadcast industry and a new stream of potentially significant revenue,” Perry Sook, the founder, Chairman and CEO of Nexstar, said on Tuesday. “Nexstar is pleased that these four broadcast groups have come together to create this important new venture.”
“With adoption of ATSC 3.0 receivers in television sets continuing to increase with more models available and sets sold every year, Gray Media is eager to join EdgeBeam Wireless to expand the user base for our broadcast signals to a new category of businesses and to spur the wider deployment of receiver chips in an expanded range of handheld units and vehicles,” Hilton Howell, the Executive Chairman and CEO of Gray Media, said in a statement.
