Competitive Assessments for HAP Delivery of Mobile Services in Emerging Countries

In recent years, network deployment based on High Altitude Platforms (HAPs) has gained momentum through several initiatives where air vehicles and telecommunications payloads have been adapted and refined, resulting in more efficient and less expensive platforms. In this paper, we study HAP as an alternative or complementary fast-evolving technology to provide mobile services in rural areas of emerging countries, where business models need to be carefully tailored to the reality of their related markets. In these large areas with low user density, mobile services uptake is likely to be slowed by a service profitability which is in turn limited by a relatively low average revenue per user. Through three architectures enabling different business roles and using different terrestrial, HAP and satellite backhaul solutions, we devise how to use in an efficient and profitable fashion these multi-purpose aerial platforms, in complement to existing access and backhauling satellite or terrestrial technologies

Simulation model for digital broadcasting technologies efficiency estimation

Digitalizacija zemaljskog emitovanja televizijskih programa prva je velika promena u TV sistemima još od uvoĊenja kolor televizije. Prelazak sa analognog na digitalno emitovanje predstavlja jedan od najvećih izazova u razvoju video i audio tehnologije i desiće se u celom svetu u veoma bliskoj budućnosti. Pored ozbiljnih tehniĉkih zahvata, ovaj proces zahteva znaĉajne finansijske investicije vezane za enorman broj standardnih TV prijemnika i široko rasprostranjene televizijske mreţe. Zbog toga, gde god je moguće u distributivnoj mreţi, potrebno je obezbediti kompatibilnost sa postojećim sistemima. Nasuprot tome, digitalizacija video signala visoke rezolucije zahteva visoko sofisticirane algoritme sa velikom kompresijom i veoma efikasnom tehnologijom prenosa. Trenutno u svetu koriste se tri meĊunarodna standarda za digitalno zemaljsko emitovanje TV programa - Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) u upotrebi u Severnoj Americi i Juţnoj Koreji, Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVB-T) pored Evrope upotrebljava se u Australiji, Indiji i nekim zemljama Azije i Afrike, Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting Terrestrial (ISDB-T), koristi se u Japanu i Juţnoj Americi. Fokus ove disertacije je na analizi performansi i razvoju metoda za procenu efikasnosti tehnologija za fiksni prijem koje se koriste u Evropi. Za isporuku TV servisa krajnjim korisnicima postoje tri glavna sistema prenosa, satelitski, kablovski i preko zemaljskih predajnika. Digitalni zemaljski sistem je sposoban za isporuku TV programa ĉak i mobilnim korisnicima. Servisi prenosa podataka i televizije visoke rezolucije (HD) raspoloţivi su preko digitalnih satelitskih i kablovskih mreţa, ali sve do sada korisnici zemaljskih mreţa nisu primali ove servise jer je za njihov prenos potreban veći kapacitet kanala u odnosu na onaj korišćen za televiziju standardne rezolucije (SD) - Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVB-T) i Moving Picture Expert Group MPEG-2 standard kompresije. Novije tehnologije, kao što su standard kompresije MPEG-4 verzija 10 i druga generacija standarda za zemaljsko emitovanje (DVB-T2), obezbeĊuju povećan kapacitet i robusnost u zemaljskim mreţama. MeĊutim, pored tehniĉkih prednosti evidentno je da najnovije tehnologije sa sobom donose i više cene opreme i sistema. Sprovodljivost poslovnog plana uvoĊenja digitalnog emitovanja je pod direktnim uticajem ovih tehno-ekonomskih pitanja.The first major change within the TV system since the introduction of color is the digitalization of television terrestrial broadcast network. The digital switchover is one of the main challenges in video and audio technology developments and it is going to happen in the very near future throughout the world. Besides the severe technical requirements, this process is driven by significant financial investments, regarding to an enormous number of standard TV sets and widespread broadcast networks. Consequently, it is necessary, wherever is possible in distribution network, to ensure the compatibility with existing systems. On the contrary, digitization of high-resolution video and audio signals needs highly sophisticated algorithms with high compression and very efficient transmission technology. There are three international standards currently used world-wide for digital terrestrial broadcasting - Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) used in North America and South Korea, Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVB-T) used apart from Europe in Australia, India and some other Asian and African countries, Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting Terrestrial (ISDB-T), used in Japan and South America. The focus of this dissertation is the performance analysis and efficiency estimation method applied to the technologies for fixed reception used in our region – Europe. The three main transmission systems for delivering TV service to end-users are satellite, cable and terrestrial networks. The digital terrestrial television (DTT) system is capable of distribution of television content even to the mobile devices. Data-casting services and high-definition (HD) television content is available via digital satellite and digital cable networks but, until now, terrestrial users have not received data and HD content because its transmission requires a higher channel capacity than that used for standard definition (SD) TV - Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVB-T) and Moving Picture Expert Group MPEG-2 coding and compression standard. The latest technologies, like compression standard MPEG-4 part 10 and the second generation of digital terrestrial broadcasting standard (DVB-T2), provide increased capacity and ruggedness in the terrestrial transmission networks. But besides technical benefits it is evident that the latest technologies bring also a higher system cost. The viability of digital broadcasting business case is directly influenced by this techno-economic issue