The World's first IoT Broadcasting

 ■The World's first IoT Broadcasting

IPDC transmits information and data using the communication protocol IP on broadcast radio waves.

I founded IPDC as the chairman in 2009.

Ten years have passed since then, and some specific actions are starting to be in motion.

Broadcasters such as TBS, Nippon Television Network Corporation, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation, Kansai Telecasting Corporation, Asahi Broadcasting Corporation, and TV Shinshu, content companies such as Space Shower and Sony, advertising companies such as Dentsu and Hakuhodo, and systems companies such as NTT Smart Connect, NEC, SCSK, and Maspro Denko are also participating.

There is also a move to provide information on disaster prevention and other topics using the V-high frequency band after the withdrawal of NOTTV.

CiP, a tech-pop special zone we are promoting in Takeshiba, Tokyo, has already obtained a license as a specific experimental test station and will conduct IoT broadcasting experiments to transmit emergency and disaster prevention data to IT devices such as smartphones and digital signage, and IoT devices such as sensors and RF tags. In addition, an actual field demonstration experiment will also be carried out in Anan City, Tokushima Prefecture, with the cooperation of Shikoku Broadcasting.

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has set the demonstration period to last until the end of this year and is calling for the early actualization of usages. It is preparing to formulate a policy for V-high, which is expected to be used to advance broadcasting services such as IPDC multimedia broadcasting and simultaneous data transmission systems for IoT terminals.

IPDC has been adopted by FM Tokyo Group in the V-Low frequency band. However, the service was discontinued at the end of March 2020. There is now an action to move the local governments' system for V-Low V-ALERT (disaster prevention information and public relations system for local governments) to terrestrial digital broadcasting. Already, TV Shinshu and Nankai Broadcasting have obtained an additional license to conduct IPDC on terrestrial digital and have started experiments working with local governments.

Based on this, this year, the IPDC Forum decided to proceed with two basic policies.

First was to make effective use of the existing terrestrial digital assets to achieve advanced disaster prevention administrative radio using terrestrial digital waves, and urge the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to design a system (such as the concretization of licenses for both communication and broadcasting) that actualizes the transfer from V-low.

The second was to establish IoT broadcasting. We will continue demonstration experiments in FY2020, and based on the results, we will urge the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to institutionalize IoT broadcasting in the V-high band, which is vacant in one wave nationwide.

Things are taking off, and I’m looking forward to it.