Recently there is a huge buzz in the media about the MIB (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting) exploring the possibility of driving broadcasting content directly to mobile phones without the requirement of the internet. In this note, I plan to discuss the challenges (technical, economic, regulatory, and business) that we need to overcome to successfully implement this concept. And given these challenges, I will conclude with the recommended line of action with a much better chance of execution.
Technical Challenges (Antenna Design)
As per the IITK paper, the target frequency band for this service is 526 – 582 MHz. Now using the equation c = f x lambda (c = velocity of light, f is frequency, lambda is wavelength), we get an approximate wavelength of 53 cm (21 inches). Now typically a dipole antenna on the mobile device is set to a size of lambda / 4, which works out to an antenna size of approximately 5.61 inches for this case vs 4.82 inches if we had limited ourselves to ONLY the 600 MHz band. Note an antenna size of lambda or lambda/2 will be better (in order to drive more power absorption capability), however, we have no choice but to settle with lambda/4 so as to align the antenna size with that of the conventional mobile device.
