Someone You Should Know: Sesh Simha, Sinclair Broadcast Group

Posted on February 4, 2020 in ATSC News

If there’s a single word that describes Sesh Simha, Vice President of Advanced Technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group, it would be “future-execution-driven.” Although he has a background in satellite and broadband, Simha said he has firmly embraced mobile and wireless communications.

“I don’t use the word ‘satellite’ or TV,’” Simha said. “I just use the world ‘wireless.’”

Simha has been bringing this future-driven mindset to ATSC 3.0 since joining Sinclair’s innovation arm, ONE Media, in mid-2016. His biggest involvement with ATSC 3.0 is not with what it currently does, but what it should eventually evolve into.

“My work is taking ATSC 3.0 to its logical frontier,” Simha said.

He emphasized the “Nextgen” ATSC 3.0 is not about TVs on walls. Rather its survival depends upon convergence with 4G and 5G. As such, he is currently executing projects revolving around smartphones, chips, cellularized systems, AI algorithms, and 5G broadcast.

Although Simha said he is “pretty senior” in terms of his career and imagines this may be his last full-time job for the next few years, he clearly retains energy and passion for his work.

“My goal is simple,” he said. “To get ATSC 3.0 into every cellphone on the planet.”  I have started in India – one billion subscribers, 500 million smartphones, 1,500 TV channels, and 10 times the per capita mobile data consumption of the U.S.”

Simha feels that ATSC 3.0 mobile services ultimately will have a major impact on the everyday consumer, thus highlighting his role in next-gen broadcast developments. To make it “sticky,” he said it must be an intrinsic part of the mobile broadband ecosystem.

“That’s when it really starts to impact the consumer,” Simha said. “When it gets out of the home and into the car and on the road.”

For his part, Simha is an international road warrior. He takes monthly trips between the United States and India for work and said he enjoys being able to stay with siblings and friends, rather than in hotels.

His very understanding wife enjoys taking shorter personal trips with him as well.

Outside of work and travel, he said he has become increasingly interested in reconnecting with the vast spiritual ocean that is India.

”I’m digging back into aspects of culture and religion and asking those questions of ‘What next?’ in life,” Simha said.

As far as “What next?” for ATSC 3.0, though, Simha said it all comes back to convergence of 4G and 5G.

“At the end of the day, ATSC 3.0 cannot be an isolated service,” he said. “It must be integrated with 4G and 5G. Sinclair is completely behind me to execute.”

Posted in ATSC News