Humber College is leading the way towards the development of Canada’s first Broadcast-Broadband Convergence (B2C) Lab to explore multisectoral data delivery applications enabled by the new Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 television broadcast standard. The ATSC 3.0 standard runs on an IP backbone and shares a common base clock with 5G networks so it can be easily integrated to improve broadcast mobility and convergence use-cases with 5G delivery. Humber’s research will include OTA broadcast-datacast applications with global data delivery standards providing seamless integration with fixed and mobile devices across any content environment. The 3.0 standard and its convergence capabilities can play a significant role in drafting the blueprint of Industry 4.0 where data science, AI and machine learning are the bedrock of how industries are being digitally transformed.

Datacasting opportunities can have a wide range of applications from IoT (Internet of Things) connectivity, autonomous vehicles, smart cities, geo-targeted emergency alerting, programmable advertising, distance learning, smart agriculture, forestry and mining and more. The B2C Lab will be the first R&D test bed in North America equipped with both an ATSC 3.0 broadcast ecosystem and 5G core network. The core mission of the B2C Lab is to position Humber as a leader in ATSC 3.0 convergence technology research and development, creating services and solutions for industry that will foster the potential of a true heterogenous communications network for data delivery incorporating the best of standards technologies.