Saankhya Labs gets 5G trial spectrum, ties up with US broadcaster Sinclair for live TV services on mobile phones
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Homegrown semiconductor chipset maker Saankhya Labs has received 5G trial spectrum from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in the 700 Mhz and 600 Mhz bands to locally test in-house products — that enable convergence of broadcast and mobile broadband networks – before launching them in the US market.
Saankhya Labs CEO Parag Naik told ET that “the experimental 5G spectrum allocation for six months will be used to test the company’s broadcast radio head (BRH) product and also an internally developed prototype broadcast-enabled mobile handset capable of receiving broadcast signals”.
Post-trials in Bengaluru, Saankhya’s BRH product, he said, would be deployed by leading the US private broadcaster,
Broadcast Group, for offering live television services on mobile phones in the US market.Separately, Saankhya plans to showcase its broadcast-enabled prototype handset to global OEMs, and offer the chipset reference design for integration in the latter’s phones, he added. It has no plans to directly enter the handsets business.
Saankhya is targeting a US commercial launch of its BRH product by the third quarter, calendar 2022.
The company’s core BRH product, which is already certified by US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), enables convergence of broadcast and mobile broadband networks that would, typically, allow digital terrestrial broadcasters in the US to boost their reach and market share.
Naik said Sinclair Broadcast’s interest in Saankhya’s BRH — which resembles a box-like mini TV transmitter — stems from dwindling consumer interest in normal TV viewing in the US. “Sinclair wants our product as it would enable them to take their television content to the far more ubiquitous mobile phone.”
He added that access to Saankhya’s BRH device would also allow Sinclair to offer data distribution services like firmware upgrades to its US auto clients over a broadcast network. Since a firmware upgrade app, typically, is a huge data guzzler, Sinclair would be able to offer the same service over a broadcast network at far lower rates than over standard unicast networks.